Poll Shows City Council Member Carlina Rivera Surging Ahead of the Pack Running for 10th District

By Yehudit Garmaise

NYC City Council Member Carlina Rivera, (D-2nd) came out as the frontrunner amidst a large pack of candidates running to represent Boro Park’s 10th Congressional District, according to a poll the progressive firm Data for Progress released today.

Through texts and online ads, Data for Progress polled 533 likely Democratic primary voters in the district between July 7-10.

Rivera, who represents the East Village, the Lower East Side, and other neighborhoods in Manhattan, was the favorite of 17% of the voters.

When nine Democratic candidates running for the open 10th District seat spoke to several Brooklyn political clubs on Monday night, Rivera, who has passed 22 pieces of legislation, spoke about her “very humble” roots growing up in the district in Section 8 housing to a single mother, getting support from the city’s supplemental food programs and other services, and working as a waitress.

Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou (D-65th), a progressive who recently admitted her support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement, came in second with 14%of voters’ support.

Niou also currently represents neighborhoods in Manhattan, such as the Lower East Side, Chinatown, South Street Seaport area, Financial District, and Battery Park City.

Dan Goldman, the US House of Representative's lead attorney who led the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, and who is Jewish, came in third: with 12% of voters planning to vote for him.

Next, was former US Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman (D-16th), the first woman to serve as both the comptroller of NYC, and as the district attorney of Kings County, who received 9% of voters’ support.

Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon came in with 8%, and US Rep. Mondaire Jones, who now represents Rockland County’s 17th District, came in with 7%. Only 5% of voters said they planned to vote for former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Approximately 27% of voters polled, however, said they were not sure who they would vote for in the primary that will determine the Democratic candidate who will run for the open seat in the US House of Representatives in the primary on Aug. 23.

“This is a race in flux,” said Data for Progress Executive Director Sean McElwee, who also didn’t rule out Jones who recently moved to Brooklyn from Rockland County’s District 17, nor Holtzman, who served in Congress for four terms, ending in 1981: before the top three frontrunners were even born.

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