Van Bramer enters Queens BP race, Crowley considers run
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Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer (LEft) announced his candidacy for Queens borough president Tuesday. Former Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley said she is also strongly considering a run. City Council Photography
By David Brand
The race for Queens borough president is heating back up, less than two months after new borough president Donovan Richards took office.
Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer has formally announced his candidacy for the June Democratic primary, while former Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley, who finished second to Richards in last year’s Democratic contest, says she is strongly considering a run.
Richards is forced to defend the seat after only a few months in office because he was elected in November 2020 to finish former Borough President Melinda Katz’s term. Katz left Borough Hall to take office as Queens district attorney Jan. 1, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic compelled Gov. Andrew Cuomo to cancel a March special election and replace it with a traditional primary-general election format to fill the vacant seat.
Van Bramer, a Long Island City councilmember term-limited at the end of this year, had initially planned to run in last year’s special election before dropping out in January 2020. He left open the possibility of running in 2021 and made his decision official in a campaign video Tuesday.
“We’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fundamentally change Queens politics forever,” Van Bramer said in the campaign launch video. “We can create a better and more just world together.”
He enters the race with $384,210 in his campaign account, according to a financial disclosure report published earlier this month. Richards has more than $114,000 remaining in his account.
Van Bramer said he left the race last year in order to spend more time with his family, especially his 80-year-old mother who features prominently in his new campaign launch video.
“I confronted an inconvenient truth: I wanted more time for family while it counts the most, and more time being healthy and happy,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Eagle in February 2020.
Crowley, a former councilmember in Western Queens’ District 30, told the Eagle Tuesday she is strongly considering a run after placing second to Richards in the June 2020 primary.
“The borough I grew up in and love is in dire need of leadership,” Crowley said. “Small businesses are closing, parents are frustrated with losing a year of their children.
She outraised the field ahead of the 2020 special election, taking in $586,825 in private contributions and another $1,224,411 in public matching funds. She has not yet filed a campaign committee for the June primary.
Crowley received about 27 percent of the vote in the June 2020 Democratic primary, while Richards won the election with about 34 percent.
But this year, 34 percent won’t be enough to win a borough president primary.
New York City’s 2021 primary and special elections will feature ranked-choice voting, which means the winning candidate must receive a majority of the vote.
Voters will have a chance to designate their top five candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, the last-place finisher is eliminated and voters who picked that candidate will have their second choice tallied. That process will continue until one candidate receives a majority of the vote.
“This is a different type of election,” Crowley said. “There’s a reason ranked-choice voting was put on the ballot and the vast majority of New Yorkers want a candidate who can achieve 50 percent of the vote.”
Richards won the November 2020 general election with about two-thirds of the nearly 800,000 ballots cast. He defeated Republican nominee Joann Ariola, chair of the Queens County Republican Party.
In a statement, Richards’ campaign spokesperson Tom Musich said he is confident Queens voters will choose the incumbent in the June primary, and again in the November general election.
“Since his election, he has worked to assist small businesses, modernized the community board application process, and helped organize the COVID-19 vaccination process,” Musich said. “We are confident that voters will recognize the progress that has already been made in the first month and in those to come.”
