Rep. Carolyn Maloney is at risk of losing her New York City district after a closer-than-expected Democratic primary, in which her current margin is a slim 500 votes.
Maloney has 41.5% support to insurgent challenger Suraj Patel’s 40% as of Wednesday morning, with 38,065 votes counted overnight.
Maloney, 74, is chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee. Her loss to Patel, 36, could be the second for House Democratic leadership this week if New York Rep. Eliot Engel is defeated by liberal rival Jamaal Bowman. Engel is the top Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee and trails Bowman, a former public middle school principal, in their race in the northern Bronx and southern Westchester County.
Maloney and Patel’s matchup is a reprisal of their 2018 contest, in which Patel, an attorney, also notched 40% of the vote. Maloney, however, secured 60% and went on to win the general election to represent east Manhattan, as well as parts of Brooklyn and Queens, for another term.
“We are confident in our path to victory after a very strong performance,” Patel said in a statement Tuesday night. “We have a mandate for change and the final tally will reflect that.”
Maloney was first elected to Congress in 1992, beating an incumbent Republican in New York’s “Silk Stocking” district, which was previously represented in various iterations by Ed Koch and John Lindsay. She was a teacher, New York City Board of Education administrator, and New York State Legislature staffer before she earned a berth on the New York City Council in 1982.
