The stunning political upset by Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in last week’s primaries was nearly coupled with another seismic political upheaval in Brooklyn.
Longtime Rep. Yvette Clarke narrowly avoided a shocking defeat by political newcomer Adem Bunkeddeko on the same night that Ocasio-Cortez ousted 10-term Rep. Joe Crowley. It had been more than 20 years since a congressional Democrat incumbent lost a primary in the city.
Clarke, who was first elected to Congress in 2006, eked out a meager 1,075-vote win against the 30-year-old Bunkeddeko to hold on to her seat.
A Post examination found that an influx of new constituents moving into gentrifying neighborhoods had inflamed festering concerns that Clarke had “checked out.”
“The blood is in the water,” one ex-staffer said.
Interviews with two former Clarke staffers paint a picture of a lawmaker who is perpetually late, remains largely disengaged and has accomplished little since her first election.
“To say that she was chronically tardy I believe was factually accurate,” one said.
The source added, “She didn’t really care.”
She is expected to win reelection against Republican Lutchi Gayot in her heavily Democratic district in Central Brooklyn this November, but her political future is an open question.
An analysis of data by the CUNY Graduate Center Mapping Service shows the demographic changes in the city. Some 66,000 people who are old enough to vote have moved into the neighborhoods that make up Clarke’s 9th Congressional District since 2000. More than half of the recent arrivals, 36,000, are white, according to Census data.
The influx has made major neighborhoods like Prospect Heights and Crown Heights the poster children for the wave of gentrification sweeping across the borough. Those neighborhoods — and upscale Park Slope — provided Bunkeddeko with the bulk of his support, the CUNY analysis found.
It’s a pattern CUNY researchers found in the two other congressional districts where Democratic incumbents faced energetic political challenges: the 12th Congressional District, where longtime Rep. Carolyn Maloney squared off against newcomer Suraj Patel, and the 14th Congressional District, where Ocasio-Cortez toppled Crowley.
“You can see very clearly that even when the challengers didn’t win, they both got their strongest vote support from areas that are already gentrified,” said Steven Romalewski, who runs the Graduate Center’s Mapping Service.