Election Facts
Length of Time in Office
- 1st Term
- First Elected 2010
Committees:
2008 Congressional Election
- Michael McMahon 114,219
- Robert Straniere 62,441
2008 Presidential Election
- Obama 112,491
- McCain 108,439
District Demographics
- Hispanic 14.1%
- Asian 11.7%
- White 66.5%
- Black 6.7%
Report Card
The Thirteenth Congressional District has been the only New York City district dominated by the Republicans over the years. Centered in Staten Island, the district includes Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. In the 2008 Presidential race, the district was nearly evenly divided, with Obama winning by a slim margin. In 2004, the Thirteenth delivered the heaviest vote total for Bush of any district in the City.
It was a combination of scandal and shifting demographics that delivered this congressional seat to Democrat Michael McMahon in 2008.
The Republican incumbent dropped out of the race when a personal scandal was revealed in the wake of a drunk driving arrest.
The demographic change, the steady increase in the district’s immigrant population, is likely to have a lasting effect on district voting patterns. Latinos and Asian-Americans now make up a quarter of the district’s population and by all accounts they turned out in record numbers in 2008.
Whatever the long term voter trend, the national 2010 Republican surge washed over the shores of State Island.
Michael Grimm rode tea party outrage to victory in the Nov. 2010 elections. Immigration restriction played a major role in his campaign. Grimm blamed illegal immigration on “career politicians who want to reward illegal aliens with amnesty and citizenship for breaking our laws.” Grimm says that the United States should have” have zero tolerance for illegal immigration.” He claimed that stopping illegal immigration is “about protecting American lives.” Grimm charged that undocumented immigrants “drain our economy while jeopardizing our Republic.”
During the campaign, Grimm called for stricter penalties against those who hire the undocumented and he wants a bar on all taxpayer supported services to undocumented immigrants, with the exception of emergency medical care.
Grimm made much during the campaign of his support for building a border fence to keep Mexicans out of the United States. He also called for a fundamental alteration in U.S. legal immigration to favor immigrants from countries that are “our closest allies in supporting our fight against terror, and where there is a culture of admiration and respect for America” and to discriminate against immigration from countries which are involved in “bitter rivalry” with the U.S. .
Grimm has endorsed Arizona’s unconstitutional anti-immigrant law SB-1070 and says it will not promote racial profiling.
Contact Michael Grimm
Washington, DC
512 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3371
Fax: (202) 226-1272
Brooklyn
7308 13th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11228
Phone: 718-630-5277
Fax: 718-630-5388
Staten Island
265 New Dorp Lane, 2nd Floor
Staten Island, NY 10306
Phone: (718) 351-1062
Fax: (718) 980-0768
