Ed Braunstein, the youngest of the four candidates vying for Ann-Margaret Carrozza’s vacant Assembly seat in District 26, handily won the Democratic primary on September 14.
Braunstein, who received 2,035 votes, accounting for 37 percent in the four-way primary, beat his next closest competitor John Duane by more than 500 votes.
Throughout the race, the Braunstein camp kept relatively quiet and let political backing from gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo, U.S. Congressmember Gary Ackerman, State Senator Toby Stavisky and other powerful endorsements provide enough muscle to put him over the top.
Braunstein, 29, who has experience working under Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, came under attack from fellow candidate Elio Forcina during the final 48 hours of the race claiming that he was trying to deceive Jewish voters, calling him a Manhattan insider and not a true representative of Queens.
Being able to raise substantially more money than his competition, Braunstein had a target on his back for most of the race. Candidate Steve Behar called the Braunstein campaign “everything that’s wrong with the political system.”
Duane made the race somewhat competitive, gaining 27 percent of what Steve Stites, consultant and spokesman for Elio Forcina called “extremely low voter turnout.”
Braunstein’s victory celebration took place at Sullivan’s in Bayside where Duane made an appearance congratulating and endorsing Braunstein in the next step in his political journey when he takes on Republican candidate Vincent Tabone for the Assembly seat in November.
“We were well prepared going into today,” said Austin Finan, campaign manager for Braunstein, who described the candidate as excited about the victory. “It’s important to have a unified party . . . fortunately for Ed, we have support that goes beyond the Democratic Party and we are confident in winning the seat.”
As an attorney and lifelong resident of Bayside, Braunstein campaigned on bringing reform to Albany and restoring people’s faith in government. This is his first time running for political office.
