Melinda Katz and Tiffany Cabán.
July 17, 2019 Staff Report
Public defender Tiffany Cabán out-raised Queens Borough President Melinda Katz by more than $171,270 as their contentious Queens District Attorney primary race headed towards a recount, financial documents show.
According to Board of Elections financial reports, Cabán raised more than $207,400 in the most recent filing period from July 1 to 11, compared to the $36,160 that Katz raised.
This represents a significant reversal from the beginning of the campaign, when Katz pulled in more than $1,419,000 and Cabán had about $256,700.
The reports also show Cabán spent less than her opponent during the period—about $142,100. Katz spent $325,307, although that was mostly used for previous campaign consulting, as The City noted.
The BOE reports came out just after the start of a manual ballot recount that is expected to take roughly two weeks.
The recount operation was automatically triggered by Melinda Katz’s narrow 16-vote lead over Tiffany Cabán after affidavit and absentee ballots were counted on July 3. Until that point, Cabán had held a 1,199 vote lead over Katz.
Alongside the recount, Cabán and Katz will be meeting in court regarding the validity of 114 specific affidavit ballots that contain errors in the information filled out by the voter. Ultimately, a ruling will be issued on these 114 disputed ballots after the manual recount concludes, but only if the results are still close enough for them to have an impact.
The winner of the Democratic Primary is expected to face off against GOP nominee Daniel Kogan in November.
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9 Comments
I have lost respect for Katz. Even if she wins at this point she has come across as an entitled white woman who is just creating chaos for everyone. If Katz raises over a $1million dollars in her campaign and “won” by 16 votes that doesn’t look like a winner to me.
Katherine- What’s a winner to you? 95% of eligible voters either didn’t turnout or voted against the two front runners.
How is Katz creating chaos? This was a six-person race, so the vote was always going to be splintered. It came down to Katz and Cabán, but Lasak drew a sizable amount of votes too.
The BOE vote tallies on election night were preliminary, and the race was too close to call between Katz and Cabán. So Katz didn’t concede and insisted on counting all the votes. It was Cabán who prematurely declared victory, causing confusion once the outstanding paper ballots were counted. Katz is leading by a few votes now and there’s a full recount in progress. Whoever wins, even if by ONE vote, will be the winner.
It was a close race but I wouldn’t call a recount “chaos.” And I don’t know how that makes Katz an “entitled white woman.” That’s kind of a racist comment too.
It doesn’t really matter if Katz wins – her rumored run for NYC Mayor has been stopped. What does it say when a borough president who has some name recognition and the backing of what remains of the party behind her has such a poor showing. If she only wins by 100 or 1,000 or even 10,000 votes for DA, how can she expect to win the mayoralty?
Can we just finish the recount?
It sure does matter who wins the Democratic primary. And how they lose too.
Both candidates should report the source of their donations. Would be interesting to know how much money came from outside of Queens and NY.
NYTimes ran a story on that with map graphics.
It’s public information. Check the last link to The City in the article. Or go to the NYS election website.