Teaneck Democratic chair will seek Assembly seat

Teaneck Democratic Municipal Chair Alexandra Soriano-Taveras will seek an open State Assembly seat in the 37th district.

Both incumbents, Gordon Johnson and Valerie Vainieri Huttle, are seeking party support to run for the State Senate seat of Loretta Weinberg, the five-term incumbent who announced last week that she would not seek re-election.

Born in Harlem to immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Soriano-Taveras served on Manhattan Community Board 9 before moving to Teaneck in 1999.   She served as president of the Teaneck Community Charter School Board of Trustees and teaches in the Bogota public school system.

One of the two is expected to seek re-election to the Assembly, although it’s not immediately clear if the fallback option will be available if both candidates remain in the race going into the Bergen Democratic convention in March.

Paul K. Yoon, a Fort Lee councilman and leader in the Korean American community, has already emerged as the leading candidate for the Assembly seat in a district that has experienced a growth of Asian American residents over the last two decades.

While Yoon would be the first Asian American legislator from Bergen County, Soriano-Taveras would become the first Latina in the delegation since Marlene Caride left her district seat in 2018 to join Gov. Phil Murphy’s cabinet.

The Latino population in Teaneck is about 17%, and about 35% in Hackensack and 11% in Fort Lee.