Democrat Susan Zhuang, winner of a hard-fought City Council primary in June, may be a first-time candidate, but she is no newcomer to politics.
Zhuang is a longtime staffer to Assemblyman William Colton, and she said that experience has made her intimately familiar with local concerns.
What You Need To Know
- Three candidates are vying for an open City Council seat in southern Brooklyn
- District 43, which includes parts of Sunset Park, Bensonhurst and Gravesend, was redrawn last year as an Asian-majority district
- Susan Zhuang, who won a three-way Democratic primary, is a longtime staffer to Assemblyman William Colton
- Ying Tan, a longtime community volunteer and activist, is the Republican candidate, while Vito LaBella is running on the Conservative Party line
“Any issues you can imagine, I see them all,” Zhuang said in an interview. “And I know what they need in the community, and I know what they want in the community. And I know how to pursue, to help them in the community.”
The newly drawn District 43 includes parts of Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach and Gravesend. Asians make up 53% of the population in the district, which was created as a so-called Asian opportunity district in last year’s redistricting process.
Like Zhuang, Republican candidate Ying Tan is also Chinese-born.
“I am the first-generation immigrant from China, and I can speak the language,” Tan said in an interview. “I believe that I could be the bridge with the Asian community.”
A longtime community volunteer and activist, Tan said crime is top of mind for voters.
“Public safety would be the major issue that we have to fix right here,” Tan said. “We have to fully fund [the] NYPD. We have to make sure that we have more recruitment.”
The messaging is similar to all three candidates in the race, including Zhuang. While Democrats have been painted as soft on crime thanks to issues like bail reform, Zhuang has positioned herself as a moderate.
“Public safety is very important for every single family,” she said. “We want our kids to go to school safe, and also want our kids to come home safe.”
A third candidate, Vito LaBella, also portrays himself as tough on crime. LaBella is a former NYPD officer who later became an education activist, advocating for school choice and gifted and talented programs.
“I went to war with the Asian community by my side, side by side, when the Department of Education tried to discriminate against Asian students,” LaBella told NY1.
LaBella lost to Tan in the Republican primary and is now running on the Conservative Party line, adding an element of unpredictability to the race.
All three candidates note that while Asians constitute a majority in District 43, the population overall is diverse.
“No matter if you speak Chinese, you speak Russian, you speak Italian, you speak Spanish, or Urdu — any other language in our community — everyone should have a voice in City Hall,” Zhuang said.