State Senate candidate Rivera’s success has a thousand fathers in Riverdale

Local politicians were all yips and cheers as results from the primary elections came in last Tuesday.

Gustavo Rivera’s triumph over Pedro Espada Jr. for the 33rd District state Senate seat and Adriano Espaillat’s win over Mark Levine in the 31st District, marked successes not just for the candidates themselves, but also for the elected officials and political groups who campaigned with them.

“A lot of people had a hand in this and a lot of people are happy about the outcome,” Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.’s spokesman, John DeSio, said of Mr. Rivera’s landslide win.

Councilman Oliver Koppell, an early endorser of Mr. Rivera’s, along with Mr. Diaz, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, a slew of other electeds aand unions, all pitched in. The Working Families Party, which endorsed Mr. Rivera and took an even greater role during the final weeks of the campaign, also aided the effort, as did the New Roosevelt Initiative, which contributed approximately $280,000 to oust Mr. Espada from office.

“The voters really did stand up … and they not only defeated Espada, they took him out with a huge percentage,” Mr. Samuels, founder of New Roosevelt, said.

Despite low statewide numbers, he estimated there was a 32 percent increase in the 33rd state Senate District’s turnout compared with the 2008 primary election. In Mr. Dinowitz’s Assembly District, which largely overlaps Mr. Koppell’s Council District, turnout was about 22 percent, Mr. Dinowitz said, which is typical for the area.

The Board of Elections calculated that in Mr. Dinowitz’s 81st Assembly District, 2,885 people voted — 2,227 for Mr. Rivera, 158 for Mr. Padernacht, who dropped out of the race, and 502 for Mr. Espada. Mr. Rivera walked away with 77 percent of the area vote.

“In the polling places closest to Riverdale it was 10 to 1,” Mr. Koppell said, referring to landslide wins at The Church of the Mediator and the Amalgamated Houses.

Some even wider margins were seen in and around Riverdale. For example, at The Arbor polling site in Riverdale, Mr. Rivera got 276 votes, Mr. Espada 15 and Mr. Padernacht 13, according to unofficial Board of Elections data. Final results for the primary have not yet been released.

“We actually had the biggest number of votes, the biggest percentage and probably the best turnout in that race,” said Mr. Dinowitz, who was criticized for not endorsing Mr. Rivera earlier and for not using his power as Bronx Democratic Committee chairman to oust Mr. Espada from the Democratic Party before the election.

Overall, Mr. Rivera won in nearly every Assembly District, with a total margin of 62 percent to Mr. Espada’s 33 percent. But Mr. Dinowitz said he believes his district could have carried the candidate even if Mr. Rivera lost by small margins in the rest.

Though less contentious, the race between Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat and Mark Levine for the 31st District seat vacated by Eric Schneiderman — who won the Democratic bid for state attorney general — also represented a huge show of Riverdale voter power.

In that contest, Mr. Espaillat won by 51 to 39 percent. 26,795 Riverdalians voted in the four-way race, about half of them for Mr. Espaillat.

“In the case of Espaillat, there is no question in my mind that Riverdale won the election,” said Mr. Dinowitz, whose Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club endorsed Mr. Espaillat, Mr. Rivera and Mr. Shneiderman.

Mr. Espaillat’s numbers confirmed that Riverdale does not necessarily side with a credible white — in this case Jewish — candidate.

“A lot people assumed Espaillat could not win Riverdale,” he said.

The rival political club, the Northwest Bronx Democratic Alliance, had endorsed Mr. Levine and Kathleen Rice — who lost her bid to become the Democratic attorney general nominee.

“I like to think that we are beyond people just voting their ethnicity, and to the extent this proves that, it’s a good thing,” Brad Trebach, NBDA’s political campaign committee chairman, said.

However, he said, “It’s disappointing, but hardly astonishing, that an Albany insider like Espaillat, with the entire political establishment behind him and the endorsement of The New York Times and the big unions, beat out a feisty and promising insurgent.”