It turns out that yes, Austin Finan, a spokesman for Grace Meng's winning campaign, was right: "Folks don't vote in June."
A court ruled that New York move its congressional primaries to June this year, instead of September, to comply with a federal law that gives those in the military time to return their general election ballots.
Tuesday's turnout, however, was terrible.
The New York Times reports that only about 12 to 14 percent of the city's registered Democrats voted in the city's four big congressional races. In the 13th District, in what was billed as the marquee race of this year's primaries, only 39,000 of the 284,000 Democrats registered to vote, voted. Charlie Rangel won the race, essentially securing himself a 22nd term.
In the 8th District, the high-profile race between Hakeem Jeffries and controversial City Councilman Charles Barron-- a race Jeffries won handily-- only drew 35,775 voters to the polls.
Meanwhile, state Republicans showed even less enthusiasm Tuesday. In electing a contender to take on Democratic Senator Kristen Gillibrand this November.The 5 percent of New York GOPers that showed up to vote chose Wendy Long. By way of comparison, 7 percent of New York Republicans showed up to vote for Romney in the New York Republican presidential primaries in April (during which at least one poll worker fell asleep), even though Romney had basically already sealed up the nomination.