A district attorney connected to the case of an unarmed black man who died after a white police officer’s chokehold was elected Tuesday to fill a congressional seat left vacant when the incumbent pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, who empaneled the grand jury that declined to indict the officer who placed Eric Garner in the fatal chokehold, will keep the seat in Republican hands. He defeated Democratic City Councilman Vincent Gentile in a low-turnout special election to succeed Michael Grimm.
With more than 98 percent of the vote counted in unofficial results, Donovan led Gentile 59 percent to 39 percent. Nearly 39,000 votes had been counted.
Donovan becomes the lone Republican to represent the city in Congress.
Also on the ballot Tuesday was a quirky race for the 43rd state Assembly District seat.
The district, in heavily Democratic Brooklyn, didn’t feature a candidate on the Democratic line since the candidate chosen by the local party didn’t file the required paperwork on time. Instead, three Democrats ran on other party lines in an effort to represent the Crown Heights and East Flatbush neighborhoods.
With 98 percent of the vote counted in unofficial results, Diana Richardson on the Working Families line had 50 percent of the vote, ahead of Shirley Patterson on the Independence Party line, Republican Menachem Raitport and Geoffrey Davis on the Love Yourself party line.
Democratic state Assemblyman Karim Camara left the position after he became executive director of Cuomo’s Office of Faith-Based Community Development.
Read more at THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
