Astoria's 2021 City Council Race: Tiffany Cabán Leads So Far

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Tiffany Cabán, who is leading the early results of the Democratic primary for Astoria's City Council seat, declared her victory in the race on Tuesday night.

As of Wednesday morning, Cabán led the first-choice, in-person vote count with 49.3 percent of the votes, followed by Evie Hantzopoulos at 26.2 percent. At the time, over 95 percent of scanning machines had been reported.

Wednesday's results include only the first-choice, in-person votes cast in District 22. Final results will not be known until mid-July, when absentee ballots have been counted and voters' second through fifth choices have been factored into the ranked-choice calculation.

In a statement sent out just after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Cabán said, "tonight, our movement won. What we did here tonight is a mandate. We have made it clear that the political will is there and we are ready to fight unapologetically and urgently for the communities we deserve.”

Eight people, including six Democrats, one Republican, and one Independent, ran to succeed City Council Member Costa Constantinides, who resigned from the District 22 seat in April.

With many eyeing Astoria as the epicenter of the borough's — and the city's — increasingly ascendent left, the District 22 race attracted some major endorsements and tens-of-thousands of out-of-city donations — most of which were in support of Cabán.

Winning Astoria's city council seat would be Cabán's first successful bid at an elected position in the borough — in 2019 the public defender and national political organizer narrowly lost the 2019 Queens District Attorney race.

However, Hantzopoulos, a non-profit leader and Community Board 1 member, outpaced Cabán within the district in the weeks leading up to the election; she raised more than two times the amount of money as Cabán from nearly double the number of donors within District 22.

The race's other Democratic candidates include Department of Education program director Leonardo Bullaro, attorney John Ciafone, journalist Catherina Gioino, and small business owner Nicholas Velkov.

Edwin DeJesus, a freelance film production assistant, is running for the District 22 seat as an Independent. Felicia Kalan, the founder and CEO of Elevate Her Consulting, is the sole Republican candidate in the race.

Here's a Patch guide on everything you need to know about the District 22 race, including candidate's responses to our questions and readers' questions.