BY ANDREW KARPAN
In the basement of the White Radish in Kew Garden, the room was cramped with a tightly-packed group of some fifty or so people celebrating the downfall of Jasmine Crockett.
“With those two candidates going down, you know, Crockett and Al Green, I mean, I feel like there’s real change coming,” said an excited Kathryn Donnelly, one of the co-founders of the Kew Forest Republican Club, a new group that formed earlier this year, splintering from other Republican groups in the county.
When someone said that those were contests, involving candidates in Democratic Party primaries in the relatively faraway terrain of Texas, Donnelly didn’t demur.
“These are radical people, look, you know, probably, those are the worst, I think,” she added. “The radicals really have to go.”
Donnelly would know something about that. Until earlier this year, Donnelly was one of the three leaders of the Central Queens Republican Club, before ditching the group with a handful of stragglers and began booking meetings of her own in mid-size restaurants in Forest Hills. Their kick-off was in January, inside the similarly compact Aged Steakhouse nearby. (“Sorry, it’s a little tight down here but we didn’t have the funds to rent another restaurant, but maybe we will in the future,” said Donnelly, apologetically.)
“A lot of people who are here used to be members of that club,” said Bart Haggerty, a local Republican district leader. “And had issues with that club,” he added. Haggerty went on to detail one of those, a territorial fight: “And one thing we’re committed to here is that we’re not going to invite Democrats to speak in our club. And that club has chosen to do that repeatedly. We’re Republicans in the end, and I’m not interested in giving Democrats a platform to stand on.”
Irene Gakin, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who runs both a travel agency in Queens and a community Facebook group (“I put in the rules of the group, it says, pretty clearly, that political posts will not be allowed.”) said she’s been a Republican since coming to the country. She was among the many in her party who split for Andrew Cuomo during last year’s election, believing that the party’s nominee, Curtis Silwa, didn’t have a chance. She made no bones about her feelings about Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat who had won.
“He’s a radical, his views are anti-Israel and that’s painful. And I’m disappointed to say the least,” said Gakin.
Andy Okuneff (left) said he “informally” supported Trump in the 2024 election. Photos by Andrew Karpan.
The group, in its first official meeting, had hoped for the blessing of one of Mamdani’s political opponents, Joanne Ariola, among the handful of outspoken Queens Republicans in the Democratic Party-controlled City Council. Ariola, however, could not make it, with Donnelly explaining something that had to do with family arrangements falling through.
The group would have to make do with Joseph Chou, an immigrant from Taiwan who runs a car repair business and who was also running a longshot campaign for Congress against Grace Meng, the longtime Democrat from Central Queens. His campaign slogan read: “Not Left, Not Right, Just Truth.”
“And you know they paint Republicans as so anti-immigration. No, we’re pro-immigration because we built this country,” said Chou. “But we built it the right way.” There was a smattering of applause.
The message perhaps resonated with Alfonso Nunez, a Dominican immigrant from Rego Park, who described himself as a Republican “for the last 20 years.” These days, he drives for Uber and was wearing a gold-colored Donald Trump toupée under a Trump 2024 vizor.
“Before, there were crazy bikes, riding on the sidewalks,” he said. “After Trump won, everything was different.”
“It comes down to breaking one party-rule,” said Andy Okuneff, a Republican from Brooklyn and the only person in the room wearing an Aphex Twin t-shirt. He had volunteered for the Trump campaign in 2016, handing out pamphlets in Reading, Pennsylvania. He had only “informally” supported Trump in the most recent election, he added.
“We have the highest taxes on earth and see trash on the streets. Ultimately, we want to lower taxes. That’s the direction we’re pushing,” said Okuneff.
