#AOC-fueled wave continues with challengers leading 3 Assembly incumbents

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Queens’ Assembly District 38 challenger Jenifer Rajkumar.
Gregory P. Mango

The progressive wave spurred by democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez two years ago continued with a vengeance in Queens Tuesday night, with insurgents toppling two — and possibly three — Assembly Democratic incumbents in Queens.

In Assembly District 34, which includes the hard-hit by coronavirus neighborhoods of Jackson Heights, Woodside, Corona, Elmhurst and Maspeth, Working Families Party favorite Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas led incumbent Michael DenDekker by 20 points with 80 percent of the machine vote in.

In Queens’ Assembly District 38 (Ridgewood, Glendale, Woodhaven, Ozone Park and Richmond Hill), challenger Jenifer Rajkumar led incumbent Michael Miller 52 percent to 25 percent with more than 80 percent of the votes in.

Meanwhile in AD 36 (Astoria, Long Island City) progressive favorite Zohran Mamdani led incumbent Aravella Simotas by seven percentage points with more than three-quarters of the vote counted. The district overlaps with AOC’s congressional district.

There are thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted for all three races.

Of the three, Albany insiders said the likely downfall of Simotas was the shocker of the three. She had opposed the aborted plan for Amazon to locate a headquarters in Long City – a litmus test for progressive critics of the deal.

But Mamdani, a housing counselor and Indian-Ugandan, captured support of key leftist groups – including Democratic Socialists of America, which backed AOC when she shocked the political world by defeating ex-Congressman and then-Queens Democratic Party chairman Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary in 2018.