Epicenter NYC and TBN24 invited several incumbents and challengers in key primary races across New York City to participate in the Candidate Conversations series. Interviews with other candidates will be scheduled and published ahead of the June primary.
Primary Election Day is Tuesday, June 23. To view your ballot and polling location, visit findmypollsite.vote.nyc and check out our full guide
Congressional candidate Julie Won still remembers landing at JFK with her family in the ‘90s. Her father, once a businessman in South Korea, soon began losing weight working odd jobs around the city and her mother, a former professor, found work in a nail salon. Won cites immigration reform as one of the main reasons she’s seeking federal office. Housing is another.
Won, a New York City council member representing parts of western Queens, recently faced scrutiny over her housing situation. She dismissed reports alleging she failed to pay rent and misrepresented her place of residence as politically motivated attacks fueled by outside spending.
“I want to make it clear that we’ve responded to every single one of those fabricated, completely disgusting defamation headlines,” Won said, adding that she has relocated because of safety concerns involving her family. “I live in a different apartment, not in the apartment that they listed,” she said. “And I live in my district, and I pay $4,000, like I had said on record.”
Won said watching the migrant crisis disproportionately affect women drove her efforts to expand shelter access and set up a domestic workers cooperative for new immigrants. She also highlighted her role in advancing 32,000 housing units. And she pointed to her work launching a housing clinic that provides free legal assistance to tenants facing eviction or disputes with landlords.
Won reserved some of her sharpest criticism for super PACs and outside spending in elections: “There is no such thing as a good super PAC,” she said. “No billionaire or millionaire should be able to purchase our election and buy our votes.”
