Local Races Dull; Prez Makes Gains

While the nation waited on pins and needles to find out how many provisional ballots there really were in Cuyahoga County in Ohio, most Queens incumbents declared victory by 9:30 p.m. and began planning agendas for their next term.
There was not one election in Queens where the winner did not lock up at least 60 percent of the vote. In fact, only one Congressional incumbent failed to hit 70 percent (Nita Lowey fell just shy at 69.3 percent).
In the most closely-watched race in perhaps the whole city, Jimmy Meng scored a colossal victory over his three opponents. Despite predictions that Republican Meilin Tan would keep it close, Meng racked up 70 percent of the vote, gaining nearly 10,000 more votes than Tan.
Another race that many anticipated being closer than it was, Peter Boudouvas fell far short of upsetting incumbent Assemblywoman Ann Margaret Carrozza, who pulled in 64 percent of the vote.
In a three-way Congressional race that had attracted some attention, Rep. Gary Ackerman easily fended off Republican Stephen Graves and third-party candidate Gonzalo Policarpio by gaining some 71 percent of the vote.
As expected, John Kerry dominated in the presidential election here in Queens. He bested President George Bush the overall victor  by nearly 250,000 borough votes. The bad news for Kerry supporters here is that turnout for their candidate was no greater than it was in 2000. Kerry/Edwards received 393,482 votes, which when all the absentee and affidavit ballots are counted will probably be very close to the 416,967 that Gore/Lieberman received four years ago.
Meanwhile, Bushs numbers jumped nearly 30 percent, from 122,052 votes in 2000 to 155,363 on this years machine count alone.
Ralph Nader, who got 13,720 votes in 2000, received only 5,135 this time.
In New York City, again Kerrys numbers stayed the same at 74 percent, while Bush went from 17.6 to 24.5 percent, ostensibly claiming a big chunk of Naders 2000 voters for his own this time around.
editrich@queenscourier.com