Tony Avella Wins Bayside's District 19 Council Primary Race

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Tony Avella is one step closer to reclaiming his old Bayside City Council seat after the ranked-choice results and a preliminary absentee ballot count on Tuesday show him with 54.7 percent of the vote compared to his closest rival Richard Lee, who won 45.3 percent of the vote.

Avella, who held a 7-point lead on election night, won 6,427 votes against Lee's 5,312, according to uncertified results released on Tuesday.

Although Lee's campaign was initially "confident" that they could make up what was an 808 vote difference as of Friday, he admitted that he did not win the race late on Tuesday.

"Thank you everyone who supported me. It was a difficult race & despite expectations we ran an incredible campaign," he wrote in a statement.

Avella has not posted on social media since the hour before polls closed on election day, other than one Facebook post on July 4th wishing his constituents a happy Independence Day.

In District 19, six Democrats ran to replace term-limited City Council Member Paul Vallone.

Lee and Austin Shafran led the district's fundraising and endorsement race for the weeks leading up to the election, but Avella told Patch that his time as a politician — most recently as a State Senator representing northeast Queens — gave him an edge in a field of first-time political hopefuls.

The race to represent District 19 was the only City Council race in Queens with a competitive Republican primary in addition to a Democratic one.

Unofficial voting results from Tuesday show business owner and activist Vickie Paladino with a less than 200-vote lead ahead of professor John-Alexander Sakelos.

These races, like all in the June primaries, won't be officially certified by the Board of Elections until at least July 12.

Avella will likely face Paladino in November's general election. The winner will take office in January.