By Bianca Fortis
Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) successfully retained her seat on the City Council when she won 57.6 percent of the votes in District 30, according to the Associated Press.
Her opponent, Republican Craig Caruana, who hails from Middle Village South, took home 42.4 percent with 87 percent of the precinct reporting, the AP said.
“This has been a very long campaign, but the people of the 30th District have spoken tonight,” Crowley said. “And guess what – they want to send me back to City Hall. The people on this room – you guys have been the backbone of my campaign. It starts from when I was just a little girl and I looked up to my mother for sense of support.”
“We took the message of the accomplishments that we’ve had …. whether it was building four new schools, creating over 5,000 classroom seats or saving the fire houses,” Crowley told supporters. “We had so many fire officers out there flooding the district, carrying the message of how unfortunately our own mayor wanted to close fire companies. But the good thing about tonight is not only did we win here, but we won across the city.”
Both candidates spent Election Day stumping for votes throughout the district, which includes Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village, Richmond Hill, Ridgewood and Woodhaven.
It was a hard-fought race. At the only debate between the two candidates, held early last week, audience members let loose a steady stream of cheers and jeers for the entire hour and a half.
Crowley was first elected to the seat in 2009.
