UFT-endorsed candidates in near primary sweep

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Manhattan Assembly candidate Gregg Lundahl (right) greets dog-walker Francisco Araujo and his neighbor, B.J. Roemer, while campaigning on East 81st Street.

Twenty-nine of 31 UFT-endorsed candidates scored victories in the Sept. 14 Democratic Party primaries, and UFT volunteers were heavily involved in key contested races. Victors handily beat opponents, some of whose campaigns were financed by hedge-fund managers allied with anti-union Democrats for Education Reform.

Said UFT President Michael Mulgrew immediately after results were known, “This was a very good night to be in the UFT. We sent a clear message: that if you disrespect teachers, we’ll come after you and make you work.”

Washington Irving HS chapter leader Gregg Lundahl, and the many UFT volunteers who joined his campaign, waged a valiant but ultimately losing grassroots effort to unseat tenure-bashing East Side Assemblyman Jonathan Bing.

UFT Director of Legislation/Political Action Paul Egan termed Lundahl’s run “a credible and energetic campaign that did the UFT proud.”

Praise also came from UFT Executive Board member and retiree Abe Levine — an indefatigable volunteer in the campaign to upend Bing. In a letter to Lundahl, Levine called it “an uphill struggle for you all the way from start to finish, but you never stopped working, fighting and campaigning.”

State Sen. Eric Schneiderman won his bid to become the Democratic nominee for attorney general, with the help of hundreds of UFT volunteers and leafletters.

More satisfying victories came with the triumphs of three incumbent state senators — Bill Perkins, Velmanette Montgomery and Shirley Huntley — over opponents massively subsidized by Wall Street hedge-fund managers.

With the help of the Bronx UFT and many other labor volunteers, first-time candidate Gustavo Rivera trounced the incumbent state Sen. Pedro Espada.

In other races, East Side incumbent Rep. Carolyn Maloney beat back challenger and Wall Street lawyer Reshma Saujani with nearly 81 percent of the vote, and embattled Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel got a vote of confidence from more than half of district voters in defeating five opponents, including veteran area political figure Adam Clayton Powell IV.

More key UFT victories came as Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat took 51 percent of the vote in his successful bid against three challengers for Schneiderman’s open state Senate seat; challenger Francisco Moya beat out disgraced former state Sen. Hiram Monserrate, winning two of every three votes cast in their Queens Assembly contest; while incumbent Jeffrion Aubry similarly bested challenger Anthony Miranda in his Queens Assembly district.