Marte Reelected to Represent Lower Manhattan in City Legislature
Incumbent City Council member Christopher Marte won his bid for reelection on Tuesday night, defeating Republican challenger Helen Qiu to earn another term representing Lower Manhattan in the municipal legislature.
According to preliminary results from the City’s Board of Elections, Mr. Marte’s widest local margin was in the 63rd election district (South End Avenue, Rector Place, and Albany Streets, along with part of Gateway Plaza), where he won two-thirds of the 219 votes cast. His narrowest win was in the 66th election district (the residential buildings clustered along North End Avenue, south of Warren Street), where he won 68 to 64 votes.
In the wider race for the First City Council District (an aggregation of neighborhoods mostly below Canal, Houston, and Delancey Streets), Mr. Marte won 68 percent of the 12,606 votes cast. He appears to have won in nearly all of the 82 local election districts (or precincts) that comprise the constituency of the First City Council District, apart from seven clustered around the Manhattan Bridge and along the East River waterfront in the vicinity of the Williamsburg Bridge. In those seven precincts, Ms. Qiu won 56 percent of the total 938 votes that were recorded.
After the votes were counted on Tuesday evening, Mr. Marte said, “the election is a reaffirmation of the work we have been doing and what we have been able to deliver to the District. Constituents understand the roots we have placed in our first term and we are excited to see it bloom. We thank everyone from across the district who believes that we need to end displacement, build true affordable housing, protect workers and make sure that every community has the quality of life they deserve. I’m humbled to have received such overwhelming support from every corner of this district and look forward to the next term.”
Ms. Qiu did not respond to a request for comment.
Local residents who view Tuesday’s election as a case of deja vu are not imagining things. City Council members are ordinarily elected to four-year terms, but the voting cycle is truncated once per decade, in the wake of the federal census, to allow for the redistricting process that is legally triggered by the population count. For this reason, Mr. Marte’s first election (in 2021) earned him only two years in office. The election decided last night will mark the start of his first full (four-year) term.