Early voting for the Primary elections for City Council begins Saturday, June 17, and will run until Sunday, June 25, with the election to be held the following Tuesday, June 27. Primaries often more or less determine who the ultimate winning candidate will be (the general election is November 7), and this is expected to be an especially low-turnout election, coming just two years after the last City Council election and following a redistricting process that will change the boundaries of districts being contested.

We have two contested primaries in our neighborhoods — for the 1st District (most of Manhattan south of Houston Street; map), and the 2nd District (East Village, NoHo, Greenwich Village east of Sixth Avenue, and most of First to Fifth Avenues, 14th to 30th Streets; map). There is no contested primary in the 3rd District (Greenwich Village west of Sixth Avenue, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen) currently represented by Erik Bottcher, who is running unopposed in the primary.

In the 1st Council District, we and LESPI held a lively forum with three of the primary candidates who chose to participate, including incumbent Christopher Marte and Susan Lee (both running in the Democratic primary) and Susan Qiu (running in the Republican primary) — WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.

In the 2nd Council District, we also held a forum for candidates. Incumbent Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who is running for RE-election, refused to participate, while her Democratic primary challenger Allie Ryan did — WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.

More than ever, every vote will count considerably in this very low-turnout but high-stakes election. As a 501(c)(3) organization, Village Preservation cannot endorse or recommend candidates. But we STRONGLY encourage you to educate yourself and to participate in the electoral process, and provide tools to allow you to do so. You can find more useful information on the new City Council districts and upcoming races HERE and on polling places and voter registration HERE.