Bottcher Celebrates Presumptive Victory To Replace Corey Johnson

LOWER MANHATTAN, NY — After the dust settled Tuesday night in the race to replace Speaker Corey Johnson as the Council Member for District 3 in Lower Manhattan, Erik Bottcher took to a stage to celebrate his impending victory in the race.

"We did it," Bottcher repeated multiple times as he addressed and thanked his parents, campaign team, and supporters at an election watch party on Tuesday.

Bottcher didn't hit the magic 50-percent mark of first-choice votes needed to be declared the winner in a ranked-choice election, but his 47.4 percent mark all but guarantees the win over the five other candidates running in the District 3 Democratic primary.

With only the first-choice votes that were cast in-person counted, Bottcher holds a 32-point lead over attorney and District Leader Arthur Schwartz.

• Erik Bottcher: 11,396 votes, 47.4 percent
• Arthur Schwartz: 3,621 votes, 15.1 percent
• Leslie Boghosian Murphy: 3,371 votes, 14 percent
• Aleta LaFargue: 2,388 votes, 9.9 percent
• Marni Halasa: 1,921 votes, 8 percent
• Phelan Fitzpatrick: 1,347 votes, 5.6 percent

Bottcher is replacing his current boss, Speaker Corey Johnson, for whom he's served as chief of staff since 2015. Before taking a position on Johnson's team, Bottcher worked as an LGBTQ Community Liason within Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office.

Johnson is running for Comptroller and currently sits 11 points behind Brad Lander in the race to replace Scott Stringer.

You can watch Bottcher's full election night speech below.

We did it!! https://t.co/JOpfYmeITv
— Erik Bottcher (@ebottcher) June 23, 2021