State
Senator Adriano Espaillat
By
Congressman Charles Rangel was
swift-footed and savvy enough to stay ahead of demographic and
geographic changes in his district during his 46 years in the House of
Representatives—but in the end, he just didn’t have enough juice to anoint an heir.
Harlem Assemblyman Keith Wright
lost his bid to replace his retiring 86-year-old mentor to State
Senator Adriano Espaillat, who challenged Rangel in 2012 and 2014 but
fell short. After a bitter Democratic primary campaign—one with heavy
ethnic overtones—the Dominican Republic-born Espaillat beat the
African-American Wright in the upper Manhattan-based district by
approximately 1,300 votes.
Former White House aide Clyde Williams,
another black candidate based in Harlem, placed third with more than
4,600 ballots and 11 percent of the overall vote. All told, 37,542
Democrats showed up at the polls in the low-turnout primary, and divided
their votes among nine total contenders for the soon-to-be-vacant seat.
Wright lagged behind Espaillat by several hundred votes most of the
night. But Rangel played coy when speaking to reporters before his
handpicked candidate appeared at the gymnasium of the New York Mission
Society on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue. He refused to even comment on
the possibility of somebody not from Harlem holding his seat, which has
been based in the neighborhood since Adam Clayton Powell Jr., New York’s
first black congressman won it in 1944.
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Source: Observer (News and Politics) and The Empire Report
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