U.S. Representative Charles Rangel appears to have won the Democratic primary for U.S. House in New York’s 13th congressional district, defeating state Senator Adriano Espaillat. With all 471 precincts reporting, Rangel led Espaillat by a 47 to 43 percent margin, or 1,828 votes.
NY1 first called the election for Rangel at 11:50pm, EST.
Senator Espaillat disagreed with NY1’s call. Addressing supporters in both English and Spanish at 11:30pm, he declared the race to be “too close to call,” and early Wednesday morning his campaign released a statement urging that “Given the thousands of votes outstanding, the people of Upper Manhattan and The Bronx deserve a full accounting of every vote to achieve a complete and accurate tally in this race.”
Still, Rangel appears to be the winner of the contentious primary, which is a rematch of a 2012 showdown in which Rangel held on by barely 1,000 votes. Espaillat appeared to be in a stronger position this time, given the increasingly-Hispanic nature of the district, and his long list of endorsements from labor groups such as the United Federation of Teachers.
But it appears that the path is now clear for Rangel to win a 23rd term in Congress; there will be no Republican candidate on the ballot in November.
This story has been updated
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