As with elections past, Documented’s reporters spread out across New York City, poll site to poll site, on Tuesday to speak to voters as they cast their ballots for the fate of the U.S. House and New York’s next governor.
Just a few months out from this summer’s primaries, the issues voters care about have remained largely unchanged. Voters in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx told Documented that public safety was a top concern. Affordability also weighed heavily in voters’ minds. And, like then as now, voters wanted candidates to defend immigrants in light of the Trump administration’s harsh anti-immigration policies.
Several immigrant voters who previously voted for Republicans said they voted for Democrats this cycle. That’s a stark difference from 2024’s presidential election where Documented’s reporting identified a clear right-ward shift in immigrant neighborhoods across New York City with shifts largely seen in the Bronx and Queens among Asian and Latino voters. Tso Waifun, 67, who cast an all-Republican ballot that day, put it like this to Documented’s reporter Lam Vo: “I don’t like whatever the Democratic party is doing.”
In Tuesday’s election, Documented’s reporters visited all kinds of polling sites — and neighborhood watering holes — to meet voters. All told, Documented’s reporters spoke to more than three dozen voters. Some voters said they were voting for Democratic candidates while thinking about their family members and loved ones who could not vote because of their immigration status. Still, several others wouldn’t share their votes. Overall the energy for the midterms was upbeat. And while some lamented the administration’s immigration enforcement policies or government spending, several voters mentioned just one thing: affordability.
Politics aside, people did vote. Nearly 700,000 voters in New York City already cast their ballots early this year, according to the city’s Board of Elections, a 60% surge in turnout from the 432,600 who voted early in the 2022 midterms. Statewide, nearly 2 million New Yorkers cast their ballots during the early voting period of Oct. 24 to Nov. 1 — a 67% jump from four years prior.
Oscar Sevilla, 42, from Mexico, has been living in the U.S. for 35 years. Outside Leo’s Barbershop in Jackson Heights, Queens, Sevilla said he voted for Trump in 2024, but said this time he was voting for the Democrats.
“I voted for Trump because he said things were going to change, but at the end of the day, things didn’t turn out the way he said they would,” he said, speaking in Spanish. He pointed to taxpayer money being spent on the wars in Israel and Ukraine as another reason for his vote.
Diego Guisao, 43, from Colombia, said he didn’t vote because of his immigration status, but told Documented about the impact of immigration enforcement in Jackson Heights on the barbershop’s clientele.
“ICE has significantly affected the community we work in,” he said in Spanish. “The number of customers has decreased, and we are struggling to make it to the end of the month.”
In Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, more than a dozen Chinese immigrant voters arrived at P.S. 97 The Highlawn to cast their ballots before 9 a.m. Several Chinese American candidates are competing in closely watched races in the neighborhood, including for State Senate where Republican incumbent Steve Chan is facing Democrat Larry He.
Just before 7:30 a.m., Dan Chen, 44, cast her ballot at P.S. 97. Chen said she voted for Donald Trump and Republican candidates in 2024. But over the past two years, rising living costs and concerns about public safety shifted her support toward Democrats.
“I hope Democrats can do a better job,” she said in Mandarin. “Trump did a good job maintaining border security and improving safety when many immigrants came into the country in recent years. But the cost of everything in our daily lives has gone up — rent, food, utilities, you name it. At the end of the day, what matters is our own lives.”
Many Chinese voters did not want to say who they were voting for, but they told Documented that their top concerns were affordability and improving public safety, which included traffic safety. Many also said that they hoped elected officials of Chinese descent would speak up for the Chinese community.
Some Bensonhurst voters expressed frustration over rising living costs and concerns about immigration. They were also dissatisfied with the Democratic establishment, which fueled their support for candidates who campaigned on sweeping progressive policies, including abolishing ICE, establishing universal healthcare and ending U.S. support for ongoing wars.
Jimmy Cheng, 81, said he voted for Republican candidates because of concerns about fraud involving government benefits, which he called a “waste of taxpayer money.”
“There should be stricter oversight of public assistance programs,” he said in Mandarin. “We should help those who genuinely need assistance, but we cannot tolerate people defrauding the government to collect benefits. We need effective ways to make sure help reaches those who truly need it.”
Another voter, Li, 70, cast his ballot for Democratic candidates at P.S. 101 in Bensonhurst. He requested to use only his last name for privacy reasons. Li said rising prices and inflation over the past few years have made life particularly difficult for low-income residents, like him, especially after the federal government stopped reimbursing stolen SNAP (food stamp) benefits in December 2024.
“Life has been very difficult,” Li said in Mandarin, noting that voting Democrat was an obvious choice.
“The simplest way to look at it is that inflation has been high under Republican leadership,” Li said. “I hope things will get better. We ordinary people don’t know that much about policy. These are just our simple thoughts.”
Alan Tran, 66, came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1979 and became a U.S. citizen in 1986. He moved to Bensonhurst in 1997 and has been an active voter since.
Tran said many Vietnamese immigrants have traditionally leaned Republican, in part because of their memories of communist rule in Vietnam. But after living in the United States for so many years, he said, political affiliations have become less important to him than issues that directly affect his daily life.
“I don’t care as much about that anymore. What matters most is my own interests and the issues that affect me,” he said, adding that he voted for candidates from both parties this year. For State Senator, he voted for the Republican incumbent Steve Chan. “He often shows up in the community. He seems very active,” Tran said.
On Long Island, Jean Dupoux, a Hempstead resident originally from Haiti, and train operator with the MTA, wasn’t happy with the status quo set by the Republican party. He voted for Democrats down the line at Barack Obama Elementary School in Hempstead.
“People came to try to get a better life. Fortunately for me, I came legally, but those who didn’t come legally, give them a chance to prove their case or whatever. Don’t treat them like dogs,” he said, his voice halting as tears welled in his eyes. “This is not human.”
Exiting Barack Obama Elementary School together were Narda Coreas, her mother and grandmother, smiling and chatting. The multi-generational trio told Documented that they came together to motivate other families like them to vote.
“To be here for people that can’t vote,” the youngest Coreas, a social worker, told Documented. She hopes for more empathy for the country, she said. Her grandmother, Maria del Carmen Coreas, echoed that she voted “for immigrants like us — we can speak for them.”
The 83-year-old matriarch, who is originally from El Salvador, told Documented that multiple friends had been taken by immigration authorities. She said she owns a Salvadoran food restaurant and has lost business following the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign — something supported by Nassau County executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman.
All three women said they voted for Democrats.
Another Hempstead resident, Berta, 50, has lived in the village for 15 years, but cannot vote because of her immigration status. Berta asked to use only her first name for fear of immigration enforcement. She said that many children had stopped going to school because of fear of immigration enforcement in the city. Even she was scared, she said, because immigration agents had been seen at a park close to her children’s school.
Her daughter and other family members were voting on behalf of the family, she said, as her 3-year-old grandson played with a toy school bus at her feet.
“They said they were going to vote for something better for the immigrant community … so that [ICE] doesn’t keep detaining immigrants,” Berta said in Spanish. “I hope someone wins who truly supports immigrants.”
In Washington Heights, Carmen Estrella, 85, from the Dominican Republic, was of the same mindset: “I want change because I am seeing that us, Hispanics, are being stepped all over,” Estrella, who cast her vote at the YM & YWHA in Washington Heights, told Documented. “This is the worst that has happened, with many people being deported.”
Another voter, a 52-year-old Dominican woman who requested not to be identified, said she had always voted Republican and that her two most important issues this election were immigration and affordability. She has been living in the U.S. for 13 years and said she has observed the price of goods be at least three times more expensive this time around.
In particular, health insurance has become a concern of hers. “I never used to pay for my prescriptions, and now I am paying for them,” she said, adding that she pays every time she goes to the doctor. “It is really hard.”
She added that she supported Trump’s immigration enforcement policies “even though he is overreaching in a lot of things.”
Cristina Tavera, 70, also from the Dominican Republic, said she was a Republican but had grown critical of Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics. “There are people who are being mistreated a lot,” Tavera said. “There is a lot of pain.”
Tavera, who has lived in the neighborhood of Washington Heights for four decades, said she was in favor of closing the border — citing disapproval with the number of immigrants that arrived under Biden — but believes that immigrants already in the U.S. should be left alone.
In her forty years of living in the country she said she has seen a lot of changes but believes this is “the worst” she has ever felt. “Trump needs to go,” she emphasized.
Written by Clarissa León. Reporters April Xu and Aorui Pi spoke to voters in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, with photographer Taurat Hossain. Ralph Thomassaint Joseph and Morelys Urbano dropped by a barbershop in Jackson Heights in Queens as well as P.S. 012 James B. Colgate Center. In Hempstead, on Long Island, Amir Khafagy, Eileen Grench and photographer Corrie Aune spoke with voters at Barack Obama Elementary School and at Hempstead Village Hall. Rommel H. Ojeda stationed himself at polling sites in Washington Heights in Manhattan, speaking to voters in the neighborhood. Shayma Al-shiri and Denia Pérez zipped their way to the Bronx at the Mitchell Community Center, and later across the street to a NYCHA housing complex.
