Epstein Wins Big, Racks Up Nearly 80% of Vote in CD2 Race
Epstein, who is abandoning the second year of his Assembly seat to take up a city council seat, pulled in 78 percent of the vote against three challengers. The seat has been vacant since term-limited Carlina Rivera resigned in August.
| 05 Nov 2025 | 09:24
Harvey Epstein (center) shortly after he was the projected winner of the CD2 race, with supporters at Linen Hall in the East Village on election night, Nov. 4. He pulled in nearly 80 percent of the vote. (
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Local elected officials, such as NYS Senator Brian Kavanagh (center, checking cell phone) were making the rounds. Here Kavanagh stopped by Harvey Epstein’s watch party. (
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Harvey Epstein pulled nearly 80 percent of the vote against three challengers in city council district 2 which takes in the East Village, parts of the Lower East Side, Mid-town East, Union Square, Midtown South, Gramercy and Kips Bay.
Epstein who based his campaign on affordable housing, health care, support for immigrants and on being a bulwark against President Donald Trump, had backing from the Working Families Party. The Republican/Conservative challenger Jason Murillo was pulling in 16.4 percent of the vote. Murillo said he was encouraged because he is the only R/C candidate to ever receive matching funds in CD2 which is overwhelmingly Democratic and he says he plans to run for the soon to be vacant Assembly seat.
”It’s a great day for New York” Epstein said at his watch party on election night at Linen Hall in the East Village. “Congratulations to Zohran Mamdani and thank you CD2 for giving me nearly 80 percent of your votes.”
Epstein, pulled in 78.3 percent of the votes in the CD2 race, which meant he was running about ten points ahead of the vote tally racked up by his predecessor Carlina Rivera in her most recent re-election bid in 2023. Rivera was hounded in the primary that year by Allie Ryan, who among other things was angry about Rivera’s support for the East River Resiliency plan that ended up chopping down hundred of trees along the East River and closing huge stretches of playgrounds and ballfields.
But that seems to have faded as an issue in the current race. Ryan, running as an independent, pulled only 3.2 percent of the vote in this year’s election.
The fourth challenger, Gail Schargel, running on the Clean Safe Street Party, pulled in only 2.1 percent of the vote.
It was a major advancement from the ranked choice primary in which Epstein ended up with 56.8 percent of the vote and the number two challenger, community activist Sarah Batchu ended up with 43.2 percent.
Once the general election result is certified by the Board of Elections–expected to happen in about a week–Epstein will be sworn in to take the vacant seat.
At that point, Gov. Kathy Hochul would have to set a date for a primary and a new special election. But whoever wins in that contest will have to immediately start campaigning again for the 2026 Democratic primary, set for June 23 and next year’s general election, set for Nov. 6.