BY THE VILLAGE SUN | Being backed by the pro-development Open New York group didn’t exactly open a trove of votes for Ryder Kessler.
The upstart, first-time candidate was roundly beaten throughout the entire 66th Assembly district by incumbent Albany veteran Deborah Glick in last month’s Democratic primary.
The Soho Alliance triumphantly issued a press release Monday evening, titled “Soho Brings Home the Bacon.” It outlined how Glick romped — and how, not surprisingly, she did her best in Soho.
“We’ve analyzed the results of the June 28 local Democratic primary elections,” the e-mail said, “and find that Soho/Noho voters were crucial in spurring the victories of Deborah Glick and Grace Lee, the two state Assembly candidates endorsed by our politically active neighbors in the Downtown Independent Democrats.”
As the alliance put it, Assemblymember Glick “achieved an overall 70 percent to 30 percent mandate against the challenger, who supported the Soho/Noho/Chinatown rezoning and the destruction of our Elizabeth Street Garden.”
Glick opposed the contentious upzoning scheme pushed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and supported by local Councilmembers Carlina Rivera and Margaret Chin. Glick also supports saving the Elizabeth Street Garden from being destroyed by the Haven Green housing project that was supported by de Blasio and Chin.
The 66th Assembly District covers the Village, Soho/Noho and Tribeca. As for the vote breakdown, the alliance crunched the numbers, determining how much Glick had won by in the various parts of the 66th. The findings: She beat Kessler by nearly 2 to 1 in Greenwich Village, but by far more in Soho, nearly 6 to 1. According to the alliance, Glick’s margins of victory were:
- 65% to 35% in Greenwich Village (Houston Street to 14th Street, Broadway to the Hudson River)
- 67% to 33% in the East Village (Houston Street to 14th Street, 4th Ave. to 1st Ave.)
- 73% to 27% in Tribeca (Canal Street to Vesey Street, Broadway to the Hudson River)
- 76% to 24% in Noho (Houston Street to Astor Place, Broadway to Bowery)
- 86% to 14% in Soho (Houston Street to Canal Street, West Broadway to Crosby Street)
Similarly, in the 65th Assembly District — covering eastern Soho, the Lower East Side and Lower Manhattan — the other D.I.D.-endorsed candidate, Grace Lee, won handily, garnering 49 percent of the overall vote in a four-way race.
Like Glick, Lee did especially well in Soho, according to the alliance’s election analysis, raking in 71 percent of the vote in the portion of Soho covering Crosby Street eastward to Lafayette/Centre Streets.
An electoral landslide is described this way: one candidate getting 15% more votes than another. The result between the two candidates in the 66th AD was broader than 15% all across the District, with Deborah Glick far exceeding that margin.