Adams-backed NY Assembly candidate Hercules Reid loses special election

A state Assembly candidate in Brooklyn who Mayor Eric Adams strongly endorsed lost his race Tuesday by a wide margin, preliminary results show.

Hercules Reid — a former aide to Adams who ran on the “Education is Key” ballot line — was beaten handily by front-running Democratic nominee Monique Chandler-Waterman in the special election, according to unofficial Board of Election results.

With 99% of ballot scanner votes tallied in the low-turnout election, Reid earned 18% of the vote while Chandler-Waterman’s received 79.5% of it in the Brooklyn district, which includes East Flatbush, Canarsie and surrounding neighborhoods.  

Just 2,384 votes were cast in the special election in the district, home to 131,543 residents, BOE results and records show.

Chandler-Waterman will now replace US Ambassador to Jamaica Nick Perry, who formerly represented the 58th State Assembly District. Perry, confirmed in March to his new post, had represented parts of Brooklyn in the State Assembly since 1990.

Reid’s decisive defeat comes two weeks after Adams gave him the thumbs up over Chandler-Waterman, who in April obtained the Democratic Party ballot line via unanimous support of the district’s Kings County Committee members.

“We need partners like Hercules,” the mayor said during a press conference held where  12-year-old Kade Lewin was shot dead. “Hercules Reid is the right person to lead the city and the state in the right direction.”

Reid — who earned about $4,000 a month assisting Adams at mayoral campaign events in 2021 and worked briefly in City Hall earlier this year — will have an opportunity for a rematch against Chandler-Waterman in the June Democratic primary. 

While Chandler-Waterman will represent the district until the end of 2022, the winner of the June 28 Democratic primary contest will compete in the November general election, and the winner of that election will then be able to serve a full two-year term in Albany.

Chandler-Waterman — a former city Test and Trace Corps staffer and aide to Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — ran unsuccessfully for a City Council seat in an overlapping district, now represented by Councilwoman Farah Louis.

On Tuesday night, the public advocate applauded Chandler-Waterman for her victory.

“Say hello to the new Assemblymember of the 58th District,” Williams posted on Twitter. “Huge congrats.”

Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan