The city's three closest Assembly races: no new count since election night, and mail ballots can arrive until Nov. 10

Two days after the election, the city's three closest Assembly races are where they were at the end of election night. The Board of Elections' unofficial results still carried a timestamp of 12:42 a.m. Wednesday when we last checked, at 10:58 a.m. Thursday. The board has not posted an updated count since then. Mail ballots that were postmarked by Election Day can still arrive through Tuesday, Nov. 10, according to the board's canvass page.

Why it matters to residents: these three seats help decide how big the Democratic majority in the Assembly will be in January. The Legislature writes the state laws on rent, school governance, the MTA and city taxes. Even a few hundred votes can matter, as a 2022 race in the Rockaways showed.

This is a follow-up to our Wednesday story on the state Legislature results.

The three closest races

All figures below are the board's unofficial results, last updated at 12:42 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4. Absentee, military and affidavit ballots counted after election night are not included. Nothing is final until the board certifies the results.

• Assembly District 49 (southern Brooklyn): Joyce Xiaoqiong Xie, the Democrat, 7,791 votes (52.8%), and Assembly Member Lester Chang, the Republican, 6,930 (47.0%), with 99% of scanners reporting. The gap is 861 votes, the narrowest in the city. Our Wednesday story listed this as a flipped seat but not among the close races; by raw votes it is the closest.
• Assembly District 23 (the Rockaways, Broad Channel, Howard Beach and part of Ozone Park): Pesach Osina, the Democrat, 17,863 votes (51.9%), and Thomas P. Sullivan, the Republican, 16,492 (47.9%), with 97.1% of scanners reporting. The gap is 1,371 votes.
• Assembly District 63 (Staten Island's Mid-Island and part of the North Shore): Assembly Member Sam Pirozzolo, the Republican, 18,322 votes (51.8%), and Matthew Mobilia, the Democrat, 17,009 (48.1%), with 98.5% of scanners reporting. The gap is 1,313 votes.

No other city Assembly or state Senate race with two candidates was within 10 points, according to our review of the board's district pages.

Who has called it

In the Rockaways, Osina declared victory on election night. The Queens Daily Eagle reported that Sullivan conceded at his own election night event in Breezy Point. The Eagle said it could not reach him for comment, and The Wave's account of the night did not mention a concession. "What we saw is communities coming together," Osina told the Eagle.

We found no public concession from Chang or from Mobilia as of Thursday morning. Pirozzolo beat Mobilia by about 15 points in 2024, 57.3% to 42.2%, according to Ballotpedia. This year's gap is under 4 points.

What our records add

How many mail ballots were out. The board publishes a recap of mail ballots by Assembly district. Its report as of Nov. 3 shows:

• District 49: 1,795 ballots sent out, 1,053 returned.
• District 23: 3,979 sent, 2,404 returned (Queens report).
• District 63: 3,804 sent, 2,439 returned (Staten Island report).

The recap doesn't say how many of the returned ballots are already in the election-night count. The ballots not yet returned are not votes. Many voters who requested a mail ballot voted in person instead or did not vote at all. But the numbers give a sense of how many late arrivals are even possible. The board says it updates the mail ballot recaps at close of business each Tuesday, so the next one should come Nov. 10, the same day as the deadline.

A Council staffer heads to Albany, if the lead holds. Osina has spent the past four years in the City Council Speaker's office, The Wave reported. Before that he worked in the district's Assembly office and the city comptroller's office. The seat overlaps Council District 32, represented by Joann Ariola, and District 31, represented by Selvena N. Brooks-Powers.

Close counts have happened here before. In 2022, Sullivan lost the same Assembly seat to Stacey Pheffer Amato by 15 votes, The Wave has reported, after a count that took nearly two months and a recount, according to amNY.

What's next

• The board began canvass preparations Wednesday at 10 a.m., according to its canvass page, with borough offices open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays.
• Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day must arrive by Tuesday, Nov. 10. Military and overseas ballots have until Nov. 16.
• Affidavit ballots, which the election-night results leave out, are reviewed during the same canvass.

We will update these counts when the board does.