By NAKIA COPELAND
Yvette Clarke won a fourth term in Congress, winning out against a little-known Republican challenger, Daniel Cavanagh.
Clarke spent close to $700,000 on a race in which her opponent raised no money, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In the redistricting that followed the 2010 census, New York lost two congressional seats, down from from 29 to 27. That left Clarke, a central Brooklyn Democrat, to serve in a district running from Crown Heights, Park Slope and Brownsville, to the north, to Sheepshead Bay and Gerritsen Beach to the south. A majority of the district’s residents are black.
Clarke’s political agenda included increasing federal rent assistance for low- and moderate-income households, preserving and expanding public housing programs, and easing the credit crunch affecting current and prospective homeowners.
Cavanagh had said in a SheepsheadBites.com survey that he hoped to help the district come together to fight crime, and improve job opportunities. He emphasized balancing the budget, saying it was important to do so in order to ensure the continued existence of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
In 2001, Clarke succeeded her Jamaica-born mother Una in the New York City Council. In 2006, Clarke won the House seat with nearly 90 percent of the vote.
Since 2002, the Republican candidate Cavanagh has served as a special assistant to State Sen. Martin Golden.
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