Carvin Cruises in GOP Primary to Take on Lowey
Turnout was low as Republican officials predicted, but Rye Town Supervisor Joe Carvin was able to easily top six-time candidate Jim Russell for the party’s nomination to take on Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Harrison) in New York’s 17th Congressional District. With almost all precincts reporting, Carvin had received around 65 percent of the vote against Russell, who had been disavowed by local Republican leaders after a controversial essay he had written on race a decade earlier was discovered.
Now comes the hard part for Carvin, who looks to unseat a 24-year incumbent seeking her 13th term in a solidly Democratic district. Lowey has consistently topped 60 percent of the vote.
Carvin, who also runs a hedge fund, blasted Russell for his 2001 essay, which said parents had an obligation “to instill in their children an acceptance of appropriate ethnic boundaries for socialization and for marriage” and criticized movies like “Save the Last Dance” for promoting interracial relationship. Russell criticized Carvin for voting for President Obama, then a U.S. senator, in 2008, but failed to find any support among the GOP establishment.
In 2010, with almost no money and without support from his own party, Russell received 38 percent of the vote against Lowey in a year that saw Republicans gain more than 60 seats in the House. Republicans are hoping the newly drawn district – which gives Lowey all of Rockland and more of northern Westchester but takes away the southern part of the county – will help their party close that gap, though Democrats still have an 80,000-voter advantage (181,622 to 100,626) in registration in what will become New York’s 17th Congressional District.
Close to 6,000 voters cast ballots in the district, around 6 percent of the total registered Republicans.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
