More than three-quarters of a million New York City voters requested an absentee ballot for Tuesday’s Democratic presidential and congressional and state legislative primary elections taking place during the coronavirus pandemic.
Even though early declared winner Joe Biden is the only Democrat still actively running for president, an unprecedented 765,031 Democrats requested a mail-in ballot to vote in their party’s presidential primary.
Other candidates who dropped out of the race but whose names appear on the ballot include Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Yang, among others.
Meanwhile 707,630 Democrats requested mail-in ballots to vote in congressional and state legislative races.
For example, in the 12th congressional district encompassing the East Side of Manhattan as well as the waterfront neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens, 109,357 Democrats requested a mail-in ballot. Of that total, 78,919 Democrats were filed by Manhattan East Siders — many of whom fled the city during the coronavirus outbreak.
These stay-at-home voters will have a big say in determining whether veteran Rep. Carolyn Maloney is returned to office or they turn to a major rival, Suraj Patel, who ran against Maloney two years ago. Lauren Ashcraft is another candidate in the race.
Elsewhere, 75,653 voters filed an absentee ballot to vote in the primary for the ninth congressional district pitting incumbent Rep. Yvette Clarke vs. Adem Bunkeddeko. It’s a rematch from two years ago when Bunkeddeko nearly upset Clarke.