Two Bob Holden staffers are running against each other for their boss's seat – and it’s actually not awkward

As of Tuesday, when the New York City Board of Elections released ranked choice results for last week’s primaries, it’s official: Two staffers for City Council Member Bob Holden, Democrat Phil Wong and Republican Alicia Vaichunas, will face off in the general election as they vie for their boss’s seat. 

You’d think it’d be awkward to be in that office at the moment, but turns out, it’s not. Far from it. 

According to Holden, the office was ecstatic for Wong Tuesday afternoon. “Alicia – all of us were celebrating. I had a big smile on my face,” he told City & State Wednesday. 

Wong, an area education activist and Holden’s constituent services and budget director, was not the favorite in the competitive Democratic primary. The city’s Democratic establishment had, from the beginning, rallied around Dermot Smyth, an operative for the United Federation of Teachers. But Wong ended up on top with a narrow 325-vote lead over Middle Village roller hockey league leader Paul Pogozelski, with Smyth coming in last. 

Holden, the conservative Democrat known for getting along much better with Republicans who is term-limited at the end of the year, previously endorsed both Wong and Vaichunas – both of whom he encouraged to run. Now that they are running against each other in November, Holden says he’s staying out of it, and won’t endorse either over the other. His prior support for both candidates was confounding to some – but to Holden, it couldn’t be clearer.

“Phil Wong is not really an operative in the Democratic Party – he wasn’t endorsed by the Democratic machine in Queens, and Alicia is not an insider either in the GOP,” Holden said. “So it's like, they're kind of like me and I think the neighborhood knows that. Phil’s helped a lot of people, and Alicia, almost everyone in the neighborhood she's helped at one point. … So it's like, this is what I had hoped for. And now you can just flip a coin, whatever, like, the best council person wins.” 

Neither seems to want the election to get ugly. “I’ve known Phil … a very long time, and as long as he keeps it peaceful, we’ll all keep it peaceful,” Vaichunas said. 

“We work together fine – no arguments, no fights, nothing. It's a working relationship,” Wong told City & State. “So it really doesn't matter who is in City Hall, we still have this good working relationship.”

Both Vaichunas and Wong have pledged to hire the other to continue on the District 30 staff should they win in November, and they plan to keep the current staff largely the same. (For his part, when asked, Holden said that does not include him: “I’ve worked since I was 12 years old,” he quipped. Wong made sure to note that that staff would include the office cats.)

Vaichunas, Holden’s deputy chief of staff, even handed out literature for Wong on election day as people headed to the polls – standing in 100-degree heat from 8:30 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. “I don't think I could have done that,” Holden said. 

Vaichunas admitted she also wanted to remind people she was running in the fall, too, but said supporting Wong was “a no-brainer.” Vaichunas was the only Republican candidate running, so she didn’t have a primary race. “If I'm going to lose … I'd rather lose to Phil, because I know still the community will be taken care of,” she told City & State. “Do I plan on losing? No, I'm gonna give it my all.”

Holden did not expect things to stay warm and fuzzy in the office forever, though. “They're going to pick sides … some people are closer to Phil, and there's some people that are closer to Alicia.”

Much like Holden himself, District 30 is quite centrist with little regard for party affiliation; after all it was Holden who ran on the Republican line in 2017 after losing the Democratic primary to then-Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, only to win in the general election. That lack of allegiance in itself presents something of a conundrum for voters: How will they determine who to support in November when both candidates work for Holden, who is well-liked in the district, neither has unwavering loyalty to their party and there is little daylight between them policy-wise? If the only thing that’s different between them is party affiliation, and neither the district nor the candidates themselves really care about party affiliation, where does that leave voters? 

To the candidates themselves, the difference between them is a matter of approach. “I'm more vocal, and I will fight to the end,” Vaichunas said. “I'm the one that chases the music at night – if people have a neighbor that has a late night party or, you know, they tell me kids are hanging out at Juniper (Valley Park), drinking and breaking glass, I go out there. That's the difference between me and Phil.” Wong acknowledged that Vaichunas is nonstop. “Alicia will, like, breathe down your back until something is done or fixed,” he said, “and then I tend to be more diplomatic.”

But Holden emphasized that both candidates are constant presences in the district, and that should pay off. “That’s what the Democratic Party doesn't understand in my district – that passion shows, and you can't fake resumes,” he said. 

Neither a Wong nor a Vaichunas win in the fall would mean much for the balance of power in the council, though Republicans would be thrilled to pick up a seat to bring the total to a whopping seven, if all sitting Republicans are reelected. But it would be a meaningful flip for the city’s Republican Party as a whole, as central Queens has been shifting right for some time.