President Trump on Monday called for a re-do in the tightly-contested Democratic primary for New York’s 12th congressional district, a razor-thin race beset by issues with thousands of mail-in ballots — hours before incumbent Carolyn Maloney was set to be named the victor.
“I think you probably have to take the Carolyn Maloney race and run it over again,” said Trump in a White House briefing. “I mean, this is a small race with literally thousands of people, small thousands, and it’s all messed up.”
Though the primary was held in late June, the results are still up in the air, in part due to problems with mail-in ballots.
Suraj Patel, who is challenging Maloney for the seat representing parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, has said that more than 12,000 mail-in votes were disqualified due to issues with the ballots including lack of postmarks.
The balloting bungle is now the subject of an ongoing Manhattan court case.
Nevertheless, Maloney was expected to be named the winner on Tuesday, when the Board of Elections certifies the results.
“The preliminary results show Maloney is the winner,” BOE secretary Fredric Umane, the Manhattan Republican commissioner, told The Post on Monday, noting that the incumbent has a lead of about 3,700 votes. “It’s pretty clear now that Maloney is way ahead.”
But speaking just a short time later, Trump called for the vote to be run again.
“There’s never been a push like this before for mail-in ballots and if you look at the New York congressional race which is a disaster, Carolyn, it’s been a total disaster,” he said. “They’re six weeks into it now, they have no clue what’s going on. I think I can say right here and now I think you have to rerun that race because it’s a mess.”
With the coronavirus pandemic still raging, there has been a push to vote by snail-mail nationwide in November’s presidential election.
But Trump has grown increasingly vocal in recent weeks about his concerns with the accuracy, timeliness and security of mail-in ballots.