First-Time Candidate Seeks Last Minute Support
On Tuesday morning, as New Yorkers headed to the polls for primary elections, City Council candidate Ronnie Cho stood on a street corner near New York University and introduced himself to strangers, reminding them that today was the day to vote. Cho has plenty of experience with this kind of work — he’s worked on a number of political campaigns over the last 17 years — but this primary day was different. This time he was asking people to vote for him.
As a political veteran, Cho knows that courting voters on primary day is not how you win an election. “It’s the work that you do in the months before,” Cho says. “The sweating, going up and down the stairs, the heat, the dog days of the summer. That’s when it’s won.”
But that won’t stop him from spending all day greeting people on the street and telling them how he can help. Flanked by friend and actor Kal Penn, as well as a few volunteers sporting ‘Ronnie Cho for City Council’ signs, Cho talked to anyone who would stop. He wore a broad smile, hopeful that his political know-how, a summer full of electioneering, and a few last-minute voters would be enough to claim victory.