BROOKYLN — North Brooklyn incumbent State Senator State Senator Martin Malavé Dilan fended off a second challenge by insurgent candidate Debbie Medina in Tuesday's primary.
Dilan, who's held his position in the senate since 2002, earned 55 percent of the democratic vote, about 5,512 votes.
Dilan, whose district covers parts of Williamsburg, Bushwick, Greenpoint, Bed-Stuy, Cypress Hills, City-Line, East New York and Brownsville, promised that if reelected he would work to push through a bill he's introduced several times that would make it a felony for landlords to harass rent-stabilized tenants by sabotaging their apartments.
About 4,000 voters cast their ballots for Medina, a long-time tenant organizer at Los Sures, who won around the same percentage of votes back in 2014, hoped to galvanize Bernie Sanders supporters this time around and ran on a "democratic socialist" platform of reforms for rent regulated tenants.
In total, around 10,000 of the district's 115,491 registered democratic voters turned up at the polls — a scant 8 percent of registered voters.
The race was one of three in the area to see incumbents hold their ground against newcomers.
►In the tightest race in the area, incumbent Linda Minucci narrowly beat Emily Gallagher, a neighborhood activist with Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, for Female District Leader of the 50th Assembly District (Parts of Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Clinton Hill).
Minucci’s held her position since the 1980’s and had been accused of being a no-show for the unpaid post.
Gallagher lost by around 345 votes, 44 percent of the vote.
On Facebook following the results, Gallagher thanked all those who'd helped her campaign, content that they'd given the decades-long incumbent a run for her money.
"For the first time in 32 years, my campaign forced my opponent to fundraise. She had never done that before! She never needed to! But we scared her and her team," Gallagher wrote, pledging to continue her bid for public office in the future.
"As for me — don't worry. I'm just getting started here. And I will never stop showing up, and standing up. I don't need a title to do that."
► In the 53 Assembly District which covers parts of Bushwick and Williamsburg, Maritza Davila defended her position as Female District Leader against challenger Carmen Bonilla, an organizer with Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council. Davila took 62 percent of the vote, beating her opponent by just under 1,000 votes.
