NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Democrat Max Rose officially conceded to Republican challenger Nicole Malliotakis on Thursday in the race for New York’s 11th Congressional District.
Last week, Malliotakis declared victory over the first-term Democrat in New York’s most conservative district that includes Staten Island and southern Brooklyn.
At the time, Rose refused to concede, saying 40,000 to 50,000 absentee ballots still needed to be counted.
Over a week later, Rose took to Twitter to say that the ballots are still being counted, but it did not appear that he would meet the threshold needed to win re-election.
“As we continue to count every ballot and are on track to dramatically narrow the gap by tens of thousands of votes to a 4-5% margin, it is now clear that we will fall short of 50.1%,” he wrote. “I have called to congratulate Congresswoman-elect Malliotakis on her win and concede the race.”
Malliotakis, a five-term State Assemblywoman who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2017, declared victory about an hour after polls closed on Election Day.
"I entered this race with eyes wide open knowing that victory wouldn’t come easy. But, from the start I knew this race was never about me," she told supporters in a victory speech. "This race was always about you, the hardworking New Yorker who obeys the law, pays their taxes and gets up every morning and goes to work."
Rose on Thursday vowed a smooth transition of power and said he was proud with the work he accomplished while in office.
“I am immensely proud of everything we accomplished in the last two years including, but not limited to” permanently funding the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, making real and significant progress to combat the opioid epidemic, securing millions to improve our commutes, enacting split tolling to take thousands of cars off the expressways at not cost to commuters, cutting through the red tape to finally begin construction of the East Shore Seawall,” Rose said in a statement.
He added: “Representing this district has been the honor of my life.”
As of 2 p.m., Malliotakis held nearly 58% of the vote while Rose held 42%.
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