Maloney Wins Squeaker Over Aronson in CD4 Dem Primary

In the tightest city council race in the city, Virginia Maloney, who was ahead on primary day by fewer than 400 votes, pulled ahead of Vanessa Aronson for good only after the fifth and final round of ranked-choice votes were tallied July 1 to give her the victory in the hotly contested City Council District 4 race

Maloney eventually won in the six-person race with 12,258 votes when the ranked-choice votes were added, just 1,586 more than the 10,772 racked up by Aronson. But it was enough to give Maloney 53.2 percent of the vote to Aronson’s 46.8 percent.

With more than $1.2 million in campaign spending by the six candidates in the race, it ended up being one of the most heavily financed races in the city. Rachel Storch, a former Missouri state representative who moved back to the city a dozen years ago and opted out of matching funds early on, finished third. She raised $454,000, the most of any candidate in the 51 council races, and spent $346,168 during the campaign.

Maloney raised $188,225 and, with $202,567 in matching funds, spent $334,365; Aronson raised $108,123, received $202,667 in matching funds, and spent $276,224 on the campaign.

The race also attracted a heavy infusion of PAC money. And the race got heated in the final days of early voting when the PAC New Yorkers for a Better Future 2025, financed by billionaire hedge fund owner Bill Ackman and Vornado Realty chairman Steve Roth—both big boosters of President Donald Trump—distributed a flyer urging voters to cast ballots for Storch, Faith Bondy, and Maloney but nobody else in the six-person race. Aside from that, a PAC known as Local Economies Forward NY, funded by DoorDash, contributed $161,393.70 to the Maloney campaign.

The Ackman/Roth-backed PAC prompted NYS Senator Liz Krueger to call a press conference June 18 in which two of the candidates, Aronson and Ben Wetzler, who were left off the mailer distributed by the PAC, said they were going to cross-endorse each other and urged their own followers to vote for the other candidate as their second choice. Krueger said she found the introduction of the big PAC money into the campaign “disturbing” and urged people not to vote for Storch.

But the cross-endorsements added a huge degree of drama after Round 1 ended with Aronson trailing Maloney by only 329 votes. After the fourth round, with Wetzler’s votes added, Aronson was actually ahead but had not surpassed the 50 percent tally. And when the fifth and final round tallied the votes, most of the votes for Storch, the No. 3 candidate, apparently transferred to Maloney, giving the daughter of longtime East Side Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney the victory in her first bid for elected office.

Maloney had not made any cross-endorsement deals. Many tagged her as the favorite early on due to name recognition.

But after primary day, Maloney was ahead by only 26.79 percent of the vote and Aronson breathing down her neck with 24.45 percent and Storch not far behind the pair with 22.81 percent.

“Our campaign shocked the establishment by outperforming all expectations based on the huge amounts of outside spending in this race,” said Aronson on primary day.

Maloney, whose supporters had gathered in the back room at Paddy Reilly’s Pub at East 29th Street and Second Avenue on primary day, June 24, thanked “Team Maloney” with her mom sitting next to the pool table cheering on her daughter. But the younger Maloney acknowledged, “It’s all going to come down to July 1.”

And so it did, by only 1,586 votes in the final round.

“It is an incredible honor to win this primary and to have the opportunity to fight for my community in the City Council district where I was born and raised,” Maloney said. “I’m proud of the strong campaign we ran, earning support and connecting with voters across Manhattan’s East Side.”

The seat was open because the current occupant, Keith Powers, representing the district that starts in Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village and takes in parts of Midtown East including Kips Bay, Murray Hill, part of Times Square, and zigzags as far north as a single block on East 93rd Street, is term limited. He mounted an unsuccessful bid for Manhattan borough president against State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal in the primary.

Powers made no endorsement during the race but congratulated Maloney with a post on X. “A very sincere congratulations to @vmmaloney on becoming the nominee for my City Council seat,” he wrote. “She is smart, talented, and ready to serve the great communities on the East Side. I am confident District 4 is in good hands with Virginia leading the way.” He also thanked all the other candidates in the race. “And a sincere thank you & congrats to Vanessa, Rachel, Faith, Ben, and Lukas [Florczak] for stepping up and running fantastic races. The future of the East Side is bright!”

The race, which started as a fairly friendly match between six candidates with deep roots on the UES, ended up as one of the most expensive and contentious in the city.