WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES AUGUST 8, 2019 19
Dems in Ridgewood area are feeling the Bern
BY MAX PARROTT
MPARROTT@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@RIDGEWODOTIMES
A recent interactive map
published by The New York
Times shows that, with
the exception of a tiny sliver of
Little Neck supporting Joe Biden,
Bernie Sanders has the highest
density of individual donors
across the borough out any of
the 2020 Democratic presidential
candidates.
The map is based in partly
fundraising records from ActBlue,
an online fundraising platform
that takes in donations for
Democratic candidates.
The number of Sanders donors
was especially dense in Ridgewood,
Maspeth, Middle Village, Elmhurst,
Rego Park, Briarwood, Jamaica Hills
and Howard Beach.
Sanders’s fundraising has
steadily raked in contributions
from small donors after kicking off
his presidential bid with a massive
lead in low-level contributors.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders at a 2016 address at LaGuardia Community
College in Long Island City. Photo by John McCarten
In the U.S. overall, Sanders has
746,000 individual donors, with
Elizabeth Warren coming in second
with 421,000 and Buttigieg, Harris
and Biden coming after her in
that order.
Sanders is leading his rivals
in total money raised, but not by
a huge margin — his $36 million
total only $4 million above Pete
Buttigieg’s total.
Whi le Sanders consistently
has the most donors across the
Queens map, the candidate with
the second-highest donor level
changes per geographic region.
The margins for Bernie are
generally a little slimmer as your
get to the outer borders of the
borough.
Throughout the northwest in
Long Island City and Astoria,
where Sanders received a
slimmer margin of donors than
the southern part of the borough,
Buttigieg and Warren received the
second largest amount of donors.
As you get up into the northeast
in the Flushing, Murray Hill and
College Point area, Andrew Yang
consistently wins the second most
donors.
And traveling down into the far
southeast of the borough in St.
Albans, Laurelton and Cambria
Heights, Biden gets the second
highest number.
Local GOP backs gun control, cuts Trump slack
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Following a violent weekend
in America, two of Queens’
Republican leaders said they
supported calls for greater gun control
laws — but dismissed allegations that
President Donald Trump’s rhetoric had
helped to fuel the hateful motivations
of one mass shooter.
Joann Ariola told QNS on Aug. 5
that she supports the president’s
statement of reducing gun violence
through better identification of
potential gun buyers experiencing
mental health issues, and noted
that as chair of the Queens County
Republican Party she condemns any
hate speech among her members or
in her clubs.
“I think that Trump is right
on point; it’s mental illness that’s
pulling the trigger and not the
guns,” Ariola said, paraphrasing
the president’s remarks from earlier
that morning. “However, there does
have to be better red-flagging, better
background checks, better history
for people who are registering to
be gun owners. … As county chair,
I’ve taken an initiative against clubs
and members of our party who have
people coming to them to speak who
are part of hate groups and I have
disavowed any type of hate speak
within our party.”
Ariola added that the county GOP
plans to put candidates on the ballot
to take on elected officials such
as Congresswoman Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, who Ariola believes
is divisive in her discourse with
the public.
Meanwhile, Councilman Eric
Ulrich — the only sitting Republican
lawmaker representing Queens —
called for action against domestic
terrorism and in favor of better gun
control laws.
“You can still support the 2nd
Amendment and common sense
gun control measures — the two
are not mutually exclusive,” Ulrich
wrote on Twitter Sunday. “Domestic
terrorism is the greatest threat
facing our country right now.
We need to recognize that these
senseless acts of gun violence are
not random, isolated incidents. How
many more innocent Americans
must die before we act?”
Asked whether he believed
Trump’s rhetoric was, in any way,
responsible for the rise of white
supremacy and mass shootings in
America, Ulrich said he didn’t think
so — then suggested that blaming
Trump was a matter of politics.
“It’s disappointing that some
Democratic presidential hopefuls
would use these tragedies to put
the blame squarely on Trump,”
Ulrich said. “The president has
repeatedly condemned these
senseless acts of violence. Did the
media hold Presidents Clinton
and Obama responsible for the
massacres at Columbine or Sandy
Hook? I don’t think so. I understand
the country is divided and we are
entering the 2020 election cycle
but at what point do we simply put
politics aside and try to come up
with solutions for how to end gun
violence in America?”
The El Paso shooter, Patrick
Crusius, 21, posted a manifesto
online that targeted immigrants
with language that equated
migration to an “invasion” and
support for Trump. This echoed
statements the president made at a
recent campaign rally, in which he
said, “You look at what is marching
up, that is an invasion! That
is an invasion!”
The president tweeted similar
comments back in January and, in a
March address at the White House,
referred to the arrival of migrants at
the southern border as an invasion,
saying specifically, “It’s an invasion
of drugs and criminals and people.”
By contrast, the shooter in Dayton,
Connor Betts, reportedly posted
support for presidential candidate
Elizabeth Warren on Twitter
and expressed left-wing views,
according to Heavy.com.
Warren, however, has not made
any comparable provocations
in public.
Bill Parry contributed to
this report.
Photo: Cassandra Karas/Flickr Creative Commons
/Heavy.com
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
link
link
