Close Race in Queens Stands Out in Year of DA Elections in NY Metropolitan Area
The Bronx, Staten Island and Nassau County all held district attorney elections in 2019, but in each county, the incumbent won another term.
December 30, 2019 at 12:45 PM
3 minute read
Tiffany Cabán, left, and Melinda Katz. AP photos
The district attorney election in Queens captured the national spotlight in 2019, when public defender Tiffany Cabán nearly defeated Queens borough president Melinda Katz in a heavily contested primary.
The Cabán-Katz race was the most prominent and closest-run of a series of district attorney elections in the New York metropolitan area that were mostly dominated by incumbents seeking reelection.
The vote was so close that Cabán declared victory in June, creating a flurry of conversation about how Queens could be the next county to join a nationwide trend of progressive prosecutors' offices.
But a paper ballot recount lasted for weeks, and Cabán finally conceded the race to Katz in early August, taking credit for shifting some of Katz's stances in a progressive direction.
Katz won the general election easily, and she is set to become DA after midnight on New Year's Day. She has promised to target sex traffickers rather than sex workers and to refuse to prosecute low-level marijuana arrests.
She'll also be in charge of implementing the statewide criminal justice reforms that go into effect Jan. 1, including an accelerated discovery process and the elimination of money bail in most cases.
Acting Queens DA John Ryan will leave the District Attorney's Office once Katz starts work, his office confirmed in October. Ryan began leading the office in March when DA Richard Brown stepped down for health reasons after 28 years in the role, and he was sworn in as acting DA after Brown's death in May.
Cabán, meanwhile, took a job with the progressive Working Families Party in the fall to work on reform-minded prosecutors' campaigns across the country, the Queens Daily Eagle reported.
The Bronx, Staten Island and Nassau County all held district attorney elections in 2019, but in each county, the incumbent won another term. In Rockland County, retired Judge Thomas Walsh cruised to victory after running on the Democratic and Republican party lines.
Westchester County is set to have a contested Democratic primary in its 2020 DA race, and Manhattan and Brooklyn each have DA elections on the calendar in 2021.
Read more:
Democrat Singas Wins 2nd Term as Nassau County DA, Katz Elected Queens Top Prosecutor
Cabán Taps Top Campaign Lawyer Ahead of Final Vote Count in Queens DA Primary
Cabán Maintains Her Narrow Lead in Queens DA Race as Ballots Remain to Be Counted
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