The powerful New York Hotel Trades Council is backing Assemblywoman Grace Meng

The powerful New York Hotel Trades Council is backing Assemblywoman Grace Meng in a three-way Democratic primary for a Queens congressional seat.

The endorsement, announced Thursday, provides on-the-ground help for Meng, who already has the support of the Queens County Democratic organization but hasn’t won many labor endorsements.

“As a union that represents workers in an industry built on immigrant labor, we are excited to endorse Grace Meng for Congress,” said the union’s president, Peter Ward, in a statement. “A daughter of immigrants, Grace will be a powerful voice for the close to 3,000 Hotel Trades Council members in her district, many of them New Americans.”

Labor has split its endorsements in the Sixth District race. The union-backed Working Families Party is supporting Assemblyman Rory Lancman, as is 32BJ, which represents building workers. Many of the building trades unions, meanwhile, are backing City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley.

City Council Member Dan Halloran is the only major Republican candidate running for the seat.

Josh Gold, the Hotel Trades Council’s political director, said the endorsement was partially the result of a demographic shift in the union’s membership: More Asians are joining the union, including the primarily Chinese and Tibetan workers at the recently unionized Ace Hotel, and Meng would become New York’s first Asian-American member of Congress.

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