Why Bronx Voters Elected a Republican for City Council
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Voters in the East Bronx elected a Republican to City Council for the first time in 40 years, defeating one-term councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez. Jonathan Custodio, Bronx reporter for The City, reports on what drove the neighborhoods to Republican Kristy Marmorato, and whether this election signals an enduring shift.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Brian Laird Show. Welcome back everyone. I'm Bridget Bergen filling in for Brian who's off today. |
| 0:15.8 | One big takeaway from Election Day right here in the city was that we're going to unpack this morning |
| 0:22.4 | is the GOP is sending their first city council |
| 0:26.0 | and over to the Bronx since 1983. |
| 0:28.9 | That is 40 years ago. |
| 0:31.5 | So in a district where 61% of registered voters are Democrats, incumbent Democrat |
| 0:37.0 | Margie Velazquez lost her seat to Republican Christie Marmarado in Throgsnick. |
| 0:43.0 | Velazquez won just 47% of the vote to Marmorado's 52%. |
| 0:48.0 | One major reason cited for her loss, |
| 0:51.0 | a last minute decision by Velazquez to support a rezoning plan in her |
| 0:56.0 | district under pressure from City Hall. |
| 0:58.8 | So we're going to talk now about how this one district swung to the right and some other takeaways from the surprise |
| 1:06.4 | upset for a Democrat with Jonathan Custodio Bronx reporter for the nonprofit news |
| 1:12.4 | organization the city Jonathan |
| 1:14.4 | welcome to WNYC thank you for having me happy to be here and listeners we want to hear |
| 1:20.8 | from you if you live in Marjorie of Alaska's city council district in the eastern part of the Bronx, help us report this story. Tell us what happened in your backyard. Did you vote for Christine Marmorado? We factored into that |
| 1:34.6 | decision. Are there any other surprises from Election Day last week that you want to |
| 1:39.5 | talk about even in other parts of the city? The number is 212 433 WNYC. That's 212 |
| 1:46.8 | 433 9692. You can call or text or tweet at Brian Laird. And Jonathan by way of background, take us to the |
| 1:57.0 | district, take us to Throg's neck. You called it a politically mixed area |
| 2:02.0 | in one of your stories about the city council race. |
| 2:05.0 | Who lives there? Where are we and how politically mixed is it? |
... |
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