Forest Hills' District 29 Council Race: Schulman Leads So Far

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Lynn Schulman, an attorney who works at the City Council Office of the Speaker, has taken a narrow, early lead as the first-choice, in-person votes roll in for the District 29 City Council race in Forest Hills.

As of Wednesday morning, Schulman led the early results with 22 percent of the vote, trailed by Aleda Gagarin at 20.6 percent. David Aronov, Donghui Zang, and Avi Cyperstein were the only other candidates who had more than 10 percent of the vote, with over 95 percent of scanning machines reported.

Wednesday's results include only the first-choice, in-person votes cast in District 29. 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.

The race to represent District 29 remained crowded throughout this election cycle, with 11 people — including 10 Democrats and one Republican — running to succeed longtime, term-limited City Council Member Karen Koslowitz.

Among the Democratic candidates, Schulman was regarded as the moderate front-runner.

In the weeks leading up to the primary she led the district's fundraising race — including donations and independent expenditures from political committees and labor unions.

However, Gagarin, an activist and nonprofit leader, who received endorsement and support from progressive leaders and organizations, outpaced Schulman when it came to the total number of individual donors, both in the district and the race at-large.

Here's a Patch guide on everything you need to know about the District 29 race, including candidate's responses to our questions and readers' questions.