Local Rep. Seeks GOP Nomination
Rep. Bob Turner announced on Tuesday, Mar. 13, that he will seek the Republican and Conservative nominations to challenge Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand for her Senate seat in the November general election.
Turner said that he would travel to the Republican convention in Rochester this weekend and the Conservative Party’s convention thereafter to stump for support from delegates. He noted that he has made his “intentions known to the other Republican candidates in the race.”
The other Republican hopefuls for the nomination are Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, Rye Town Supervisor Joe Carvin and Manhattan attorney Wendy Long. Including Turner, the four candidates are seeking the party’s favor to challenge Gillibrand, who is seeking a six-year term after being appointed to the office in 2009 to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Gillibrand was elected in 2010 by state voters to fill out the remaining two years of Clinton’s term.
A retired television executive from Breezy Point, Turner won the Ninth Congressional District seat- which covers parts of southern Brooklyn and central Queens, including many neighborhoods in the Times Newsweekly’s coverage area- in a surprise victory in a special election last September over Democratic candidate Assemblyman David Weprin. He filled the Congressional seat vacated by former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who resigned last June amid an online provocative photo scandal.
“I ran for the House six months ago as a private citizen fed up with what is happening in Washington,” Turner said in the statement issued by his campaign on Tuesday. “I could not sit and watch career politicians sink my nation deeper into crisis. Brooklyn and Queens voters, of all political parties, graciously responded by sending me to Congress. It now appears that their district has been eliminated.”
As previously reported, a Congressional redistricting plan submitted by a federal magistrate last week would eliminate the Ninth Congres- sional District as it is currently constituted along with an upstate Congressional district. By law, New York must lose two seats in Congress due to reapportionment.
Areas of the Ninth Congressional District will likely be absorbed into neighboring districts currently represented in Congress by Joseph Crowley, Nydia Velázquez, Edolphus Towns and Gregory Meeks. Some neighborhoods will also be part of a new Sixth Congressional District that will be comprised of much of central Queens between Ridgewood and the Queens/Nassau border.
Under the proposed redistricting, Turner’s Breezy Point residence falls under a new Fifth Congressional District, much of which is comprised of southeastern Queens areas represented by Meeks.
“There is serious work to be done to get this economy back on track, and I will not walk away from that work now,” Turner added in his statement. “I will run for the Senate, and I will run to win.”
