Description
Elect Eliot Engel NYS Assembly Campaign Button. In 1977, Engel entered the special election for a seat in the NYS Assemblyafter the incumbent DemocratAlan Hochbergwas forced to resign. He was theLiberal Partynominee in the special election, and on March 1, 1977, he won by 103 votes, defeating Democratic nominee Ted Weinstein and Republican nominee Arlene Siegel. Engel was a member of theNew York State Assemblyfrom 1977 to 1988, sitting in the182nd,183rd,184th,185th,186thand187th New York State Legislatures. He chaired the Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, as well as the Subcommittee on theMitchell-Lama Housing Program. In 1988, Engel ran for theU.S. House of RepresentativesinNew York's 19th congressional districtHis state assembly district covered much of the congressional district's southeastern corner. He defeated ten-term incumbent DemocratMario Biaggiin theprimarywith 48% of the vote.Biaggi had been charged withracketeeringin theWedtechscandal,and was eventually jailed byRudy Giuliani. Biaggi was unopposed for the Republican nomination (he had run on both the Republican and Democratic lines since 1972), which Engel won with 56% of the vote. Engel's district, which became the 17th in 1993 and has been the 16th since 2013, had historically been one of the more conservative districts in New York City. Republicans represented much of its territory at the state level as late as 2004. However, reflecting the increasing Democratic trend in the Bronx at the federal level, Engel would never face another general election contest nearly as close as his first one. He was re-elected 14 more times by at least 61 percent of the vote and only dropped below 70 percent of the vote twice. As a measure of the district's growing Democratic trend, Biaggi is the last candidate running on the Republican line to clear the 40 percent mark. By the 1990s, as in much of the rest of New York City, the Democratic primary had become the real contest in this district. From 1990 to 2018, Engel only faced two competitive primary contests (getting less than 70%). In 1994, he defeated musicianWillie Coln62%-38%.In 2000, Engel defeated State SenatorLarry Seabrook, who had the support of Bronx County Democratic Party Chairman Roberto Ramirez, 50%-41%. In2020, Engel was challenged in the primary by Yonkers school principalJamaal Bowman, who ran well to Engel's left. Bowman received a surprise endorsement from State SenatorAlessandra Biaggi, Mario Biaggi's granddaughter.In a mid-June poll, he trailed Bowman by ten percentage points and, after the election, with early and election day votes counted, Bowman led Engel by almost 12,000 votes, 61.8% to 34.9%. Absentee ballots were scheduled to be counted on June 30, 2020, though some sources called the race for Bowman before the counting of absentee ballots. After the absentee ballots were counted, Bowman's lead was 55.4%-40.6%, or 13,218 votes. The race was called for Bowman on July 17, 2020, with theNew York State Board of Electionscertifying the results on August 6, 2020.
