Chi Ossé Wins Brooklyn District 36 City Council Race

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Ranked-choice voting results and newly-released absentee ballot counts have cemented activist Chi Ossé as the winner in Brooklyn's race for the 36th City Council District.

Ossé, who held a strong lead on election night, had a nearly 2,700-vote lead over second-place candidate Henry Butler in the updated final round of ranked-choice voting, which eliminated the other three Democratic primary candidates after four rounds.

NY1 called the race for Ossé shortly after the most recent results, which included absentee ballots, were released on Tuesday.

The first-time candidate had already declared victory over the weekend after the in-person votes were released.

"The amount of people that told this queer 23 year old [Black] college dropout that he couldn’t do this…this win goes out to y’all," he Tweeted Friday.

Butler had not yet conceded as of Wednesday morning.

A total of five candidates were on the ballot to replace the term-limited Council Member Robert E. Cornegy Jr., who was running to become the next borough president.

Ossé is an activist and co-founder of the Brooklyn organization Warriors in the Garden, a youth-led collective at the forefront of the revitalization of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

His win comes after since-deleted offensive Tweets sent out by Ossé last year made headlines just days before the primary. Ossé has since apologized for the Tweets — which targeted women, religious groups and others — but some of his opponents have not been satisfied with his response.

District 36 is one of several races in Brooklyn where a victor emerged after ranked-choice results, including nearby District 35, where former city staffer Crystal Hudson won.

This story has been updated to include absentee ballot results, which were released late Tuesday.