Democrats hung on to a state Assembly seat in Queens in a competitive special election Tuesday in which the city’s migrant crisis was the dominant issue.
Democrat Sam Berger defeated Republican David Hirsch in the 27th Assembly District that runs through central and northeastern Queen neighborhoods from parts of Forest Hills to Kew Garden Hills and from College Point to Whitestone.
Berger garnered 2,447 votes, or 55%, to 1,979 votes, or 45%, for Hirsch, who also ran on the Conservative Party line, according to the city Board of Elections tally with 99% of the scanners reported.
The victory is a relief for nervous Democrats, who feared that voters would punish them for the migrant crisis with their standard bearers in control of City Hall, Albany and the White House.
Hirsch called Berger to concede around 9:30 p.m., shortly after the polls closed, his campaign said.
Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans in the moderate 27th District — but the GOP’s candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, carried it in the 2022 gubernatorial race.
There are 62,961 active voters in the district: 34,357 Democrats, 10,386 Republicans and 16,383 blank or unaffiliated voters.
Only 4,438 votes were tallied in the unofficial count — well under 10% of registered voters.
The special election was triggered when the area’s last lawmaker, Daniel Rosenthal, stepped down to take a position at one of the city’s most prominent charities, United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.
The Democrats nominated Berger, who is an Orthodox Jew and the 25-year-old son of a local district leader, to replace Rosenthal.
He is a graduate of St. John’s University Law School.
Rosenthal — a Democrat, who was first elected in a special election in 2017 at the age of just 26 — backed Berger.
Berger also had the backing of Queens elected Democratic leadership and most of the big labor unions — including the Police Benevolent Association, United Federation of Teachers, Local 1199 SEIU health care workers and Uniformed Firefighters among many others.
Hirsch is a 34-year-old educational policy consultant who is also Orthodox and a rabbi.
Zeldin held a campaign event for him over the weekend.
The migrant crisis had been a dominant issue in the campaign. A respite center for migrants is located in the district, at the St. Agnes Academic High School in College Point.
“It’s something that’s on people’s minds. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. It’s an American issue,” Berger told The Post on Election Day before the results were announced.
“We need leadership. The federal government must suck it up and buck it up.”
Hirsch spokesman Robert Morgan said the Democrats were “in full panic mode” over the migrant crisis and “changed their messaging” to address the disaster during the final weeks of the campaign.
One Democratic consultant expected a competitive race.
“The southern portion of the district is heavily Democratic, the northern portion has become heavily Republican,” said Evan Stavisky, a veteran Democratic strategist who worked for Rosenthal.
“The challenge for both candidates is to get out their base and to win over the swing voters, the Orthodox who live in Kew Garden Hills.”
Zeldin won nearly 56% of the vote in 2022 across these three neighborhoods in 2022, but President Biden carried it in the 2020 election.
A Republican has been shown to win a low-turnout special election in a moderate district.
In 2011, Bob Turner scored an upset by defeating Democrat David Weprin in the special election for the Brooklyn-Queens congressional seat vacated by ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner following his sexting scandal.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy