AS the November 8 polls draw nearer, candidates across the state continue to mobilize their campaigns and work double time to knock on more doors and meet more of their constituents.
Steven Raga, the Democratic candidate for an Assembly seat, has been feeling the heat lately as his Republican opponent continues to ride on their party’s recent surge as they continue their push to turn New York red.
Raga has a chance to make history with a win next week and become the highest and only Filipino-American elected to office.
“Recently because of Zeldin picking up steam against Kathy Hochul, there’s a lot of local, more extreme Republicans that are being more vocal being more excited to vote, getting their friends and family to vote, having rallies in the district,” Raga told a handful of local media over the weekend in Queens.
The candidate mentioned Zeldin’s recent campaign event in New York City, particularly in Middle Village in Queens, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis coming to New York to campaign for the Republican candidates.
“This kind of signals that they’re targeting New York to be a possible red state sometime soon,” Raga remarked. “So we want to make sure we push back on every opportunity we can and this is one of them.”
The Democrats are now making their last-ditch efforts as early voting began on Saturday, Oct. 29. Mayor Eric Adams appeared at a campaign rally with Gov. Kathy Hochul in the Democratic stronghold of southeast Queens. Hillary Clinton headlined a women’s rally for Hochul this week.
While New York is a Democrat state, Raga cited that Republicans have taken control of both the city and state as well.
“It’s happened before, it has happened in recent times. Governor Pataki was a Republican, and when we had Rudolph Giuliani, New York City was one of the bluest states in the country,” he recalled. “It was in a situation where there was a rise in crime, public safety was a priority issue, similar to today. So there’s a big, big chance that that might happen.”
“We need all the resources we can to make sure we have the materials out there and that’s why we’re asking for more volunteers,” Raga added, saying that he continues to raise funds so that the campaign’s in-language materials reach the targeted members of the community.
“We need volunteers for a shift pre-Election Day and especially on election day, because you can see right now if you across the street there’s a poll site and we do not have one volunteer there. And there’s going to be 100 people going there today,” he said. “We want to make sure every vote counts. We need those votes, we need those volunteers to come and sign up.”
And if community members couldn’t volunteer, Raga encourages them to donate anything from $5 or $10, which they can use to provide water and food for the volunteers.
For more information about donating and volunteering, visit ragaforqueens.com and all of their campaign’s social media. n
