New York City votes Democrat in its last Republican seat

Photo Credit: Anastassia G.

Last Tuesday’s midterms gave Democrats the House majority, while Republicans will continue to maintain the Senate.

In a historical election, Staten Island (NY-11) voted Democrat, a district that held the last Republican seat in the city.

Democrats and Republicans alike decided to go blue this election. Max Rose (D) won against incumbent Daniel Donovan (R), holding 52.8 percent of the vote.

“Rose was in Iraq... I think Max Rose has a lot of good value,” said 62-year-old Staten Island local Frank Carrera, who said he normally votes conservative. “During the debate...Donovan got caught in more lies. I don’t really like Donovan. I like Max Rose. I think he was better qualified for the job.”

In Brooklyn Heights at St. Francis College, 27-year-old actress Connor Leslie said she voted “heavily Democrat today for, obvious reasons.” She was happy about the longer-than-usual lines at her polling place.

“I take that as a very good sign,” she said. “I think that there is a huge amount of information out there, which is probably one of the benefits of social media...I think people are more aware now of what their rights are than I think even the last election, so I feel optimistic.”

Rose’s field manager, Max Roland Davidson, explained that what gave Rose a successful run for Congress is his “hyper-local” attention to issues and willingness to collaborate with whomever necessary to get legislation passed.

“It was about building relationships with the community and with the voters,” Davidson said.” I think that’s how Max is different than some other Democrats.”

He said the campaign had at least 1500 volunteers, knocking on the doors of neighbors in hopes to turn support, which is how he believes Rose won the election.

“If Democrats want to be competitive again, it's about showing people you care and showing people you invest in them,” Davidson said. “Max can't be bought off by special interests. I think there’s a lot to be said for that. I think that’s what people want right now. They want someone that’s very straight with them.”

As far as President Trump’s endorsement of Donovan, Davidson does not think that played a large role in the deciding factors of this election.

“It wasn’t really a backlash to President Trump,” Davidson said. “Donovan had sponsored two bills in three years, one of which was to rename a post office…It’s really interesting that’s that what he used to spend his time on.  He accepted $10,000 from drug companies and got $0 in new infrastructure money. That’s what the election was about. It wasn’t about Donald Trump. It was about Dan Donovan.”

All video credit to Morgan Chittum and Anastassia G.