STATEN ISLAND — The Staten Island and Brooklyn Republican parties have officially endorsed District Attorney Dan Donovan as their candidate in the race to replace Michael Grimm in Congress.
Both Republican parties announced Monday that they filed paperwork with the Board of Elections for Donovan to be their official candidate.
"Dan has been in public service for more than 25 years. He has an outstanding record for honesty, compassion and putting people first," Staten Island GOP chairman John Antoniello said in a statement. "He will be an outstanding congressman for the 11th district."
Aside from the official party nod, Donovan also picked up an endorsement from the Independence Party on Monday.
"Dan has proven time and again that he puts people before politics," Independence Party chairman Frank MacKay said in a statement. "His integrity and commitment to public service is unparalleled."
Donovan will face off against Brooklyn Councilman Vincent Gentile to fill Grimm's seat, which he resigned from in January after he pleaded guilty to tax fraud. After a judge's order, Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently set the special election for May 5.
Last week, the Democratic party selected Gentile as its candidate for the seat and on Tuesday he was endorsed by the Working Families Party in the race.
“Vincent Gentile’s been a fighter for working families on housing and health issues," said Bill Lipton, New York state director for the WFP, in a statement.
"He will bring extensive experience to this post from his time in the New York State Senate and as a member of the NYC Council. By contrast his opponent, Daniel Donovan, has become a national symbol for inequality in the criminal justice system.”
While Gentile only received the nod from the Democratic party last week, the two wasted no time publicly sparring in the campaign. On Sunday, Gentile called out the DA for not speaking in front of the public after the grand jury ruled not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner while "chaos broke out on the streets."
"After the decision of the grand jury, it was incumbent upon Dan Donovan to come before the people of Staten Island and be present," Gentile said on the Cats Roundtable radio show.
"He did none of that. He put out a press release on a Friday afternoon giving us the results of the grand jury decision. Then when chaos broke out on the streets of Staten Island and elsewhere, Dan Donovan was nowhere to be seen. He was in his rose garden."
Jessica Proud, a spokeswoman for Donovan's campaign, said, "It's shameful he's trying to score cheap political points on this issue."
As a former assistant district attorney and someone seeking the job of a lawmaker, he is showing a shocking lack of understanding of the law.”
