Democrat Khalid Bey has won the District 4 Common Council seat against Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins with a slim margin.
“I’m good. I’m satisfied. Close, but a win nevertheless. It’s the win that we were after, and we were successful,” Bey said. Bey waited for the results with 12 of his campaign workers, friends and family inside his campaign headquarters, formerly his mother’s restaurant.
At the Green Party’s election-night gathering, Hawkins thanked his supporters for coming so close to victory in his 19th run for office. “I’m really proud of my campaign,” said Hawkins.
As of 10:46 p.m., Bey had 51 percent or 1,154 votes — to 48 percent — or 1,072 votes — for Hawkins. That was with 100 percent of the vote counted in the unofficial tally from all 25 precincts.
Bey and Hawkins were trying to succeed Democrat Tom Seals, who reached his term limit of eight years on the Common Council. District 4 includes the central portion of the city including the Downtown, Brighton, Southwest, University Hill and University neighborhoods.
The district has 13,364 registered voters. Of those, 8,617 are Democrats; 1,190 are Republicans; 84 are Green Party.
In fundraising, Bey received $7,729 in donations and spent $7,317 to run his campaign. That compared to Hawkins’ $8,612 in donations, including $2,000 that he lent himself.
At the polls on Tuesday, some voters went out to show their support for Bey at Pioneer Homes Coffee House.
Dwight Hall, 46, of Syracuse was holding onto a Khalid Bey flyer outside of the polling location. He came out Tuesday afternoon specifically to vote for Bey. “I see Mr. Bey in the community all the time. He’s always interacting in the community with the kids and with everybody. And his issues are just what we need in our community,” Hall said.
A Hawkins supporter praised him for his policies. “He’s very progressive,” said Rose Dillman.
For his part, Bey was already planning ahead. “It’s certainly exciting,” said Bey, “to get an opportunity to actually get to work and put some things in motion that a number of us as a community have been talking about for a long time.”
(Caitlin Francis is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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