Lower Manhattan Democratic Primary Maps: June 23, 2026
The maps below show unofficial election night results by Election District for four closely watched Democratic primary races in Lower Manhattan: Assembly District 65, Assembly District 66, Congressional District 10, and State Senate District 27. Each pie chart represents an Election District, with the slices showing candidate vote share and the size of the circle reflecting total votes cast in that ED.
I also added Atlasizer heat-map screenshots for each race. Click those heat-map images to open the third-party Atlasizer version; click the Election District pie maps to open the interactive Kepler maps.
Congratulations to Illapa Sairitupac in Assembly District 65, Brad Lander in Congressional District 10, and Grace Lee in State Senate District 27 on their Democratic primary victories. Assembly District 66 remains too close to call: Jeannine Kiely is currently ahead of David Siffert by a very narrow margin, and the race is headed to a hand recount at the Board of Elections.
The two open Assembly races were especially fragmented. In both AD65 and AD66, the leading candidates received well under 50% of the vote on election night, and several candidates built meaningful pockets of support even without winning district-wide. By contrast, Congressional District 10 and State Senate District 27 were two-candidate contests, making the neighborhood patterns somewhat easier to interpret.
Because these are neighborhood-level maps, the point is not only who won, but how different coalitions appeared across Lower Manhattan: Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Two Bridges, the East Village, the Financial District, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Tribeca, Chelsea, and NYCHA-heavy Election Districts did not all vote the same way.
New York Assembly District 65 Democratic Primary
Assembly District 65 was an open-seat race after Assembly Member Grace Lee ran for State Senate. The district includes Lower Manhattan neighborhoods such as Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Two Bridges, Little Italy, the Seaport, the Financial District, and parts of the East Village.
Illapa Sairitupac led the unofficial election night results with about 37% of the vote. He ran as a housing organizer on the Lower East Side, an anti-ICE organizer in Manhattan, and a democratic socialist closely tied to NYC-DSA. In interviews, Sairitupac described himself as a proud socialist, queer person, and Indigenous person, and framed the race as part of a broader post-Mamdani socialist organizing moment in New York City. His campaign centered housing, tenant protections, immigrant rights, taxing the rich, labor, and building a movement-backed politics independent of real estate influence.
The rest of the field split the vote in a way that is worth studying. Jasmin Sanchez, Wei-Li Tjong, and Jay Jacky Wong all finished in the mid-to-high teens, while Mariama James and Lilah Mejia drew smaller but still meaningful blocs of support. Sanchez ran from a NYCHA, education, labor, climate, and youth-services lane; Tjong brought a Chinatown/Lower East Side biography and legal/institutional résumé; Wong ran from the district-leader and small-business/community-service lane; James centered Mitchell-Lama housing, 9/11 survivor advocacy, and 5 World Trade Center affordability; and Mejia added a lived-experience, public-school, youth-engagement, and community-organizer perspective.
| Candidate | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Illapa Sairitupac | 4,140 | 36.53% |
| Jasmin Sanchez | 1,993 | 17.58% |
| Wei-Li Tjong | 1,740 | 15.35% |
| Jay Jacky Wong | 1,731 | 15.27% |
| Mariama N. James | 1,184 | 10.45% |
| Lilah Mejia | 507 | 4.47% |
Candidate notes
- Illapa Sairitupac ran the clearest democratic-socialist lane in the race. A Lower East Side housing organizer and Manhattan anti-ICE organizer, he had previously run for the same Assembly seat in 2022 and returned in 2026 as a more seasoned candidate with stronger institutional backing from NYC-DSA, the Working Families Party, and labor unions. In a Democratic Left interview, Sairitupac described DSA as his political home and said he would not want to run without a movement behind him. He also framed his identity as a proud socialist, queer person, and Indigenous person as central to his politics. His campaign emphasized housing, immigrants’ rights, taxing the rich, labor power, and rejecting real estate influence. His victory showed the strength of the DSA/WFP/Mamdani-aligned coalition in parts of Lower Manhattan.
- Jasmin Sanchez brought a deeply rooted Lower East Side and NYCHA-centered profile to the race. A lifelong Lower East Side resident, Afro-Latina, NYCHA tenant, educator, organizer, former Democratic District Leader, and labor advocate, Sanchez emphasized affordability, public education, healthcare, climate justice, and support for working families and immigrant communities. In her PoliticsNY Campaign Insiders interview, she argued that seniors are being priced out, families face housing instability, children attend under-resourced schools, and too much of Lower Manhattan is becoming luxury development. Her candidacy occupied a left, community-based lane focused on lived experience, youth and family services, NYCHA, labor, public schools, universal healthcare, economic justice, and dignity for working-class residents.
- Wei-Li Tjong ran as a Lower Manhattan native with deep roots in Chinatown and the Lower East Side. The son of a Chinese father and Brazilian mother, he was raised on East Broadway, attended P.S. 124, and described the neighborhood as central to his identity. His campaign biography emphasized his parents’ work as New York City public school teachers, his 25-year legal career as an advocate, negotiator, judge, and consensus-builder, and his experience founding and growing a law firm. Tjong also highlighted his leadership of the Seward Park Cooperative, a diverse community of more than 5,000 residents, and his 2024 election as State Committeeman. His candidacy occupied a distinctive lane: local, immigrant-family rooted, professionally experienced, small-business sympathetic, and institutionally connected, while still presenting himself as someone shaped by the same neighborhood pressures facing AD65 residents.
- Jay Jacky Wong ran as the Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 65, Part B, and as a longtime Lower Manhattan resident. His campaign emphasized affordability, healthcare access, immigrant communities, public safety, transportation, SNAP modernization, and the local economy. His near-tie with Wei-Li Tjong is one of the most interesting subplots in the AD65 result: the two candidates were separated by only nine votes in the unofficial election night count, suggesting that multiple Chinatown/Lower Manhattan institutional and neighborhood-service lanes were competing for similar space in the electorate.
- Mariama N. James ran as a lifelong Manhattan resident, AD65 District Leader, mother of three, and Lower Manhattan housing and 9/11 health advocate. Born in Harlem and raised in Southbridge Towers, a Mitchell-Lama co-op where she has lived since infancy, James framed housing stability as the foundation that allowed her family to remain in Lower Manhattan. Her campaign biography connected that history to her family’s labor and civil rights roots, including a grandfather who helped build the original Twin Towers. After 9/11, James was nearly nine months pregnant and living blocks from Ground Zero; her children later developed chronic pulmonary issues, and both of her parents died of 9/11-related cancer. That experience became central to her public work: she has spent more than two decades advocating for 9/11 survivors and responders, including work around the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. She also co-founded the coalition for 100% Affordable 5 World Trade Center, helping secure more than 400 deeply affordable apartments on public land, with a preference for 9/11 survivors and first responders. Her candidacy occupied a distinct lane in the race: Mitchell-Lama housing, 9/11 recovery, public land for public good, Democratic Party leadership, PTA and youth advocacy, and professional experience in accounting and finance.
- Lilah Mejia ran as a lifelong AD65 resident and community organizer with more than 20 years of experience in housing, education, emergency preparedness, and mental health advocacy. Her campaign emphasized protecting NYCHA, rent-stabilized, and Mitchell-Lama housing; expanding free afterschool and early literacy support; and strengthening community safety through mental health resources and community-based solutions. Mejia also spoke openly about her own experiences as a young mother, with housing instability, SNAP, and surviving domestic violence, framing her campaign around lived experience, accessibility, and rebuilding trust in government. Although she received the smallest vote share in the six-candidate field, her candidacy represented a distinct community-organizer lane rooted in personal experience and long-term neighborhood advocacy.
New York Assembly District 66 Democratic Primary
Assembly District 66 became open after longtime Assembly Member Deborah Glick announced her retirement. The district covers much of Lower Manhattan’s west side, including Greenwich Village, the West Village, SoHo, NoHo, Tribeca, and parts of Chelsea, Union Square, and the East Village.
The leading candidates on election night were Jeannine Kiely and David Siffert. Kiely ran with deep neighborhood-institutional support, including Deborah Glick’s endorsement, and emphasized her long record on Community Board 2, public schools, parks, transportation, affordable housing, and local land-use fights. Siffert ran as a civil rights lawyer, NYU Law professor, and legislative-policy specialist, emphasizing affordable housing, immigrant rights, AI regulation, privacy, government transparency, and the need for state legislators who can draft, defend, and pass complex bills.
But AD66 was not simply a two-person race. Ryder Kessler finished close behind the leaders with a campaign blending local Community Board experience, pro-housing politics, democracy protection, and progressive organizing. Benjamin Yee also received a substantial vote share, running on civic technology, Democratic Party reform, open government, and grassroots political education. Corinne Arnold and Furhan Ahmad finished further back, but each represented a distinct message within the large field.
| Candidate | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Jeannine Kiely | 4,169 | 27.61% |
| David Siffert | 4,113 | 27.24% |
| Ryder Kessler | 3,424 | 22.68% |
| Benjamin Yee | 2,110 | 13.98% |
| Corinne Arnold | 682 | 4.52% |
| Furhan Ahmad | 567 | 3.76% |
Candidate notes
- Jeannine Kiely ran as the continuity-and-neighborhood-institution candidate in the race, but her résumé was more specific than that shorthand suggests. A longtime Village/SoHo/NoHo resident, Democratic District Leader, former chair of Manhattan Community Board 2, and current chair of CB2’s Traffic and Transportation Committee, Kiely built her campaign around the idea that she had already spent years doing the slow, local work of solving neighborhood problems. Her biography emphasized public education and youth advocacy: she helped organize to keep a Children’s Aid Society nursery school open after a sudden closure announcement, served as a PTA co-president, worked through local youth sports coalitions to improve downtown field space, and spent 12 years advocating for the opening of the 75 Morton Street school. She also co-founded Literacy Academy Collective, which helped open New York City’s first two free district public schools for students with dyslexia and struggling readers. On housing and land use, Kiely supported mandatory affordable housing, 100% affordable housing on government-owned sites, and the preservation and improvement of local parks and playgrounds, including work with Green Below 14, DeSalvio Playground, Pier 40, Gansevoort Peninsula, and Elizabeth Street Garden. Her candidacy rested on a record of local institutions, schools, parks, land use, transportation, and long-term Community Board advocacy.
- David Siffert ran as a civil rights lawyer, NYU Law professor, legislative drafter, and policy-focused reform candidate. Siffert teaches clinical law at NYU and directs research and projects at the law school’s Center on Civil Justice; they also founded NYU Law’s State Government Initiative, which focuses on building state-government capacity, innovative policymaking, and rule-of-law work. Their campaign emphasized affordable housing, immigrant rights, artificial intelligence regulation, civil rights, privacy, government transparency, and legislative competence. In interviews, Siffert argued that the Legislature had failed to fully act on issues such as housing vouchers, sanctuary-state protections, and AI harms, and presented their own experience writing bills and working with legislators as a reason they could be effective quickly in Albany. Their background also included work on access to justice, surveillance, police reform, elections, animal welfare, and government transparency; advocacy for immigrant families during the first Trump administration; involvement with New York for All; and service as president of Village Independent Democrats from 2019 to 2020. If elected, Siffert would also be the first non-binary member of the New York State Legislature. Their candidacy occupied a distinct lane in AD66: legal expertise, bill-writing, civil rights, immigrant protection, AI policy, and state-level reform.
- Ryder Kessler came very close to turning the race into a three-way toss-up. His campaign blended progressive politics, democracy protection, local biography, Community Board 2 experience, and housing/transit/climate organizing through Abundance New York. His 22.68% share is especially notable because he finished only several hundred votes behind the two leaders.
- Benjamin Yee ran as a lifelong New Yorker, Democratic reformer, civic technologist, and open-government advocate. A product of New York City public schools — P.S. 234, East Side Middle, and Bronx Science — Yee framed his commitment to democracy through both family history and professional experience: the son of a first-generation Chinese American father and a Jewish immigrant mother whose family survived the Holocaust, he described democracy protection as personal rather than abstract. His campaign highlighted his work as New York State Digital Director for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, his later role modernizing the New York State Senate’s digital infrastructure, and his years as a civic-tech entrepreneur and nonprofit organizer. As Secretary of the Manhattan Democratic Party and later a Democratic State Committee Member, Yee emphasized party reform, transparency, livestreamed meetings, public records, attendance disclosure, and opening internal party processes to more grassroots participation. He also founded You Matter Nation after the 2016 election, personally leading civic and political trainings for thousands of New Yorkers. His candidacy occupied a distinctive lane in AD66: democracy reform, civic education, public-sector technology, party transparency, and grassroots empowerment.
- Corinne Arnold framed her campaign around making it possible to stay in New York, with an emphasis on balanced policy solutions, lower costs, small businesses, and neighborhood livability. Her candidacy represented a more pragmatic small-business/community-leader lane in a race otherwise dominated by institutional, legal-policy, and progressive-organizing profiles.
- Furhan Ahmad offered one of the most distinctive biographies in the field: more than two decades of service as an EMT, police officer, and firefighter. His campaign focused on public safety, housing stability, healthcare, seniors, mental health response, and fixing systems before people reach crisis points. His share was small, but his campaign added a public-service and first-responder perspective that none of the other candidates had in the same way.
New York Congressional District 10 Democratic Primary
Congressional District 10 was a two-candidate race between incumbent Dan Goldman and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
Goldman campaigned on his congressional record, constituent services, and experience as a federal prosecutor. Lander emphasized affordability, housing, transportation, and progressive economic policies, and received the endorsement of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Congratulations to Brad Lander on his victory. Lander won decisively district-wide and also carried most of the East Village and Lower East Side by substantial margins. Goldman performed comparatively better in several NYCHA-heavy Election Districts along Avenue D, an area where his office devoted significant constituent service efforts during his time in Congress.
| Area | Dan Goldman | Brad Lander |
|---|---|---|
| New York County | 14,499 | 18,035 |
| Kings County | 13,946 | 37,025 |
| Total | 28,445 | 55,060 |
New York State Senate District 27 Democratic Primary
The State Senate District 27 Democratic primary featured incumbent Assembly Member Grace Lee against former Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou.
Lee ran on her record in the Assembly, emphasizing housing, constituent services, public safety, affordability, and protecting Lower Manhattan communities from federal overreach. Niou ran as a progressive challenger, highlighting her prior Assembly record, tenant protections, universal child care, and support from progressive elected officials and organizations.
Congratulations to Grace Lee on her victory. Given Brad Lander's decisive victory in Congressional District 10 and Illapa Sairitupac's strong performance in Assembly District 65, many observers expected Niou to run more competitively throughout Lower Manhattan. Instead, Lee substantially outperformed many pre-election expectations, winning comfortably across the district.
The neighborhood results nevertheless reveal a more nuanced picture. Niou generally performed better in the East Village and Lower East Side than she did district-wide, although she still lost most Election Districts. Lee's strongest performances came in several NYCHA-heavy Election Districts along Avenue D, suggesting particularly strong support in those communities.
| Area | Grace Lee | Yuh-Line Niou |
|---|---|---|
| AD 61 | 1,169 | 556 |
| AD 65 | 6,804 | 4,646 |
| AD 66 | 8,095 | 3,937 |
| AD 74 | 1,688 | 1,456 |
| Total | 17,756 | 10,595 |
Taken together, these four races show that Lower Manhattan is not politically uniform. Progressive candidates performed strongly across much of the East Village, Alphabet City, Chinatown, and portions of the Lower East Side, while NYCHA-heavy Election Districts along Avenue D often produced distinctly different voting patterns. The open Assembly races also show that “progressive,” “neighborhood,” “institutional,” “Asian American,” “good government,” “democratic socialist,” and “public service” lanes can overlap without being identical.
That is why Election District-level mapping is useful. District-wide totals tell us who won; neighborhood maps show how different communities, campaign messages, endorsements, and local relationships combined to produce the final result.
