BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) — The battle for the newly redrawn New York City Council District 47 features two men who were once political allies — but things have turned bitter after one of them switched political parties.
All Tuesday, a steady stream of voters made their way through the P.S. 264 gymnasium in Bay Ridge to cast their votes.
On the ballot is the hotly contested contest between Democratic Councilman Justin Brannan and Councilman Ari Kagan, who switched his party affiliation to Republican amid redistricting and South Brooklyn growing increasingly conservative.
The party change, along with issues of public safety, affordability, and the migrant crisis, are coloring the race.
“Everybody’s ready for a change. Everybody’s done with high taxes,” Kagan said Tuesday morning after voting. “Everybody is done with the looniness on the streets. Everybody wants to improve public safety, support law enforcement, to make sure criminals do not go free and do whatever they want in the stores on the streets and in the subways.”
PIX11 News was also there as Brannan voted. The powerful New York City Council finance chair has not necessarily gotten his support from certain powerful members of his own Brooklyn Democratic Party, but the unions have come out for him in a big way.
“The people that you put in office on the local level are the ones that really impact your neighborhood, and you need someone you can trust,” Brannan said. “I’m a guy, when you ask me where I stand on Monday, you don’t have to check in with me again on Thursday. I stand where I stand, and my opponent, I can’t say the same for him. So you need someone you can trust and you can count on, not someone that you agree with on every single issue.”
