BROOKLYN, NY – The race for the City Council seat in District 35 between tenant organizer, lifelong Brooklynite, and Black socialist Michael Hollingsworth and Democratic establishment-backed Crystal Hudson has ended. Hollingsworth received 46.3 percent of the vote as of the unofficial round three tally, losing to Hudson, who received 53.7 percent of the vote and benefitted from more than $226,000 in independent expenditures promoting her campaign.
Hollingsworth, meanwhile, combatted an over $103,000 expenditure by Common Sense NYC, a PAC primarily funded by Trump-supporting billionaires Stephen Ross (a real-estate developer) and Ron Lauder. One independent expenditure by Laborers Building a Better New York, a PAC of NYS Laborers and Mason Tenders—alongside whom Hollingsworth proudly fought in 2017 against the sale of the Bedford Union Armory and its current unjust working conditions—was made in support of his campaign.
Despite the powerful special interests committed to stopping Hollingsworth, the groundswell of support for a tenant organizer running on a socialist platform—including a housing guarantee and expansion of tenants’ rights, fully funding and desegregating public schools, a Green New Deal for NYC and NYCHA, defunding the NYPD and refunding historically underserved communities, and more bold policies that empower Black and brown New Yorkers—proves that, at a time of unprecedented crisis, the people of Brooklyn demand a more just society and are dissatisfied with the status quo.
“Although I won’t have the privilege and honor of representing my neighbors in City Hall, I’ll continue to fight for the thousands of tenants and homeowners in District 35, just like I have for the past five years. I’ll never stop pushing to keep us in our homes and neighborhoods, and for a truly just future dictated by us, for us,” said Hollingsworth. “This campaign was never about winning just one election. It’s about the movement we’re building. It’s about our collective, ongoing struggle for justice for poor and working-class people, and that won’t stop as long as the same harmful forces, both political and private, have an outsize say in our lives. A better Brooklyn, a better New York City, a better world is not only possible; it’s right there for the taking. But we’ll have to fight for it.”
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The Hollingsworth campaign sincerely thanks its 900 plus volunteers, its 1400 plus donors, and its many endorsers, including the Democratic Socialists of America and NYC-DSA, New York Communities for Change, Senator Bernie Sanders, Cynthia Nixon, anti-corruption activist and attorney Zephyr Teachout, Tenants PAC, Sunrise NYC, Met Council Action, LiUNA-NY, Sierra Club NYC, Food & Water Action, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s PAC Courage to Change, PSC-CUNY, Our Revolution, The Jewish Vote, Voters for Animal Rights, No IDC NY, New York Progressive Action Network, Art Against Displacement, NYC Kids PAC, Community Board 9 member Alejandra Caraballo, community organizer Samelys López, and New York State elected officials State Senator Julia Salazar (NY Senate District 18), State Senator Jabari Brisport (NY Senate District 25), Assembly Member Phara Souffrant Forrest (NY Assembly District 57), Assembly Member Marcela Mitaynes (NY Assembly District 51), Assembly Member Emily Gallagher (NY Assembly District 50), and Assembly Member Zohran Kwame Mamdani (NY Assembly District 36).
Tenant Organizer Michael Hollingsworth Loses District 35 City Council Race to Establishment-Backed Opponent added by Caribbean American Weekly on
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