Will Chuck Park Defeat Grace Meng in the Primary?
Can a Proverbial David, Chuck Park, Beat the Queens Machine Goliath, Grace Meng?
May 31, 2026 / Jackson Heights Neighborhood / Queens Politics / Queens News / News Analysis & Opinion / Queens Buzz.
Late Sunday, on a beautiful afternoon, I headed over to attend a 'Dumplings & Dialogue' event hosted by the 6th Congressional District House candidate, Chuck Park, at Kabab King in Jackson Heights. The Park campaign's volunteer press liaison, had reached out to me a few times, with compelling narratives that caught my interest.
In the photo above or at right shows Chuck Park with some of the volunteers who participated in the Dumplings and Dialogue campaign event hosted by 6th District Congressional candidate. Standing next to Chuck is Noor Shams who is a food writer,community organizer and cofounder of Alaap NYC - https://www.alaapnyc.com - and Rachel Gurjar who is a chef, cookbook author and culinary creative - https://www.rachelgurjar.com/about/. As you can see here and will see below, the campaign seems to have attracted a young, diverse, energetic group of volunteers.
The Park campaign narratives sent to me by the volunteer press liaison, included: Meng's acceptance of big money donations, Meng's support for sending billions in unconditional aid to Israel, Park's opposition to the awarding of a casino license to a billionaire tied to one of the largest insider trading scandals by a hedge fund in modern history [aka the firm was caught cheating] and Meng's lack of achievement in doing anything meaningful for the immigrant families of Queens which make up about half the borough's population. That Chuck Park's campaign had put together a simple, but resonant narrative, as to why Meng should be replaced, struck a chord, as I began my effort to delve more deeply into the two candidates of this contest. Park's effort to unseat Meng sounded viable, which has not been the case for well over a decade.
Grace Meng first won her congressional seat back in 2012. The Joe Crowley-led, Queens County Democratic machine, placed his cousin, Elizabeth Crowley's, name on the primary ballot, which pundits believed was to siphon votes away from Rory Lancman, who was a leading contender. Elizabeth Crowley held an NYC Council position at the time, and did not appear to campaign seriously, supporting this hypothesis. Meng won with less than 51% of the vote, but it was more than enough, as Crowley had made it a three-way race and had taken 16% of the vote. The Crowleys are no longer the influential people they once were in Queens politics, and it's possible that tricks like this contributed to their descent. The deadline for a trick like this has passed, as the final day to place a name on the ballot was May 19, 2026.
Who is Chuck Park?
CLICK here to read more about the election contest in the NYS 6th Congressional District where Chuck Park is challenging Grace Meng.
Will Chuck Park Defeat Grace Meng in the Primary?
Can a Proverbial David, Chuck Park, Beat the Queens Machine Goliath, Grace Meng?
May 31, 2026 / Jackson Heights Neighborhood / Queens Politics / Queens News / News Analysis & Opinion / Queens Buzz. Continued.
The candidate challenging Grace Meng is a family man, the son of Korean immigrants who are small business owners, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and Chuck was a federal employee of the diplomatic corps in the Obama and first Trump Administrations
Chuck Park is shown in the photo at right at a campaign event entitled 'Dumplings & Dialogue' held in Jackson Heights this past Sunday at the Kabab King. He's shown here with his daughter and the daughter of one of the Park campaign volunteers. The Dumplings & Dialogue event had a fun, laid back, family feel to it.
I stepped off the subway at 74th Street in Jackson Heights. I knew of the general location of the arrived at the Kabab King restaurant, but to be sure, I asked one of the shopkeepers for the specific location. The shopkeeper happily answered right away, which I interpreted as an unofficial endorsement of the restaurant as it was well known and I was told with a smile. The Kabab King has a takeout window which opens directly into Diversity Plaza. The restaurant serves Pakistani / Bangladeshi cuisine, and offers full restaurant services on the second floor, in a comfortable expansive dining room which has numerous windows overlooking the street. The Chuck for Queens Dumpling & Dialogue event was held in a private party room in the back.
When I entered the private room, I saw two long tables filled with a young, diverse, energetic group of interested voters and volunteers. Dumplings had been served from the warming cabinet at one end of the room, which also had plenty of sunshine let in by a wall filled with many windows. There was plenty of conversation flowing, and there were a couple of children present, indicating that this was a family-friendly social event.
I talked to Chuck for a while asking him about his past, which includes that he is the son of businesspeople who operate a local store, that he is married and has a daughter, and that he was educated in Economics at top ranking University of Pennsylvania. Chuck spent six years working in the federal government as a diplomat during the Obama Administration, and another 2 - 3 years in the first Trump Administration doing the same, ending when he quit in dissatisfaction with the Trump policies.
From 2022 - 2024 Chuck started working for Shekar Krishnan as his Chief of Staff. While neither Krishnan nor Park will discuss the break up, it's worth noting that Park has been an outspoken critic of providing SAC Capital billionaire Steve Cohen of the 'Black Edge' Insider Trading Scandal with a casino license next to Mets Stadium in Flushing. Krishan on the other hand, remained silent about the casino, and based on a quick and dirty check of Krishnan campaign donations I found that Krishnan has received donations from entities that do business with Steve Cohen. Krishnan is also supporting Gonzales-Rojas for NYS Senator whose husband has business dealings with Cohen. SAC Capital Cohen's firm paid nearly $2 billion in fines and essentially stopped trading for the public, following a settlement with the federal government for insider trading violations. So, it's pure speculation on my part, but it's possible that this issue may have contributed to them parting ways. We've been covering the saga of the NYS awarding of a casino license to a billionaire, Steve Cohen, who founded a hedge fund, SAC Capital, caught cheating making insider trades. For details on this story, click the link above.
In the photo above or at right is a table filled with Chuck for Queens volunteers at the Kabab King in Jackson Heights on Sunday, May 31, 2026. The enthusiasm was refreshing at a time when so much in politics has become so sordid.
When I asked Chuck why he entered the race, he told me it was first and foremost that he did not think Grace Meng was doing a very good job of representing / standing up for her district. When I probed for details he said that he wants to defund ICE, ] and that he wants to pass Medicare for All, which would move the U.S. to a single payer system like Canada and Taiwan. Use this link to learn more about that issue - Medicare for All - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_for_All_Act
And Chuck Park also wants the federal government to quit fleecing [that's my word - not his] the American taxpayers for the funding used by the Israeli's to commit genocide in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and neighboring territories.
We did a story a couple years back, which identifies that the Netanyahu Israelis have been on an imperialistic binge, funded by American taxpayers thanks to Grace Meng & co. And since Trump 2.0 began their efforts to exploit opportunities in the Middle East, the Israeli's efforts have also been staffed in part with American GI's lives. Since the story was written, the Israelis have been illegally annexing lands in Gaza, the West Bank, farmlands along a river in Lebanon, and in the report we talked about the Israelis' illegal annexed and were developing oil fields in the Syrian Golan Heights. Worth noting is that Fox TV News billionaire, Rupert Murdoch, and former VP Dick Cheney both signed up for stock / shares in the oil company tasked with the development.
Chuck Park Picks Up Numerous Endorsements
Chuck has received a number of notable endorsements including but not limited to the following, Sunrise Movement NYC, New York Progressive Action Network, Citizen Action of New York, The 504 Democratic Club, The Korean American Democratic Committee, Muslim Democratic Club of New York, Central Queens Independent Democrats, Forest Hills Indivisible, Raj Goyle, Candidate for NYS Comptroller, Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, and Progressive Victory - to name a few.
In the photo above or at right are some of Chuck for Queens campaign materials. Chuck Park is looking to replace Democratic Machine candidate Grace Meng, to be the representative for the 6th Congressional District of NYS.
Things to Know About Grace Meng
1. She's the Democratic Establishment / Machine Candidate. She's been the 6th District Congresswoman since 2012. She votes with the party almost every time, which is why Hakeem Jeffries reportedly leaned on the Working Families Party NOT to endorse Chuck Park, even though 94% of the Queens delegation voted in Chuck Park's favor and 67% of the Regional Advisory Council did too. For details on this see - https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/03/wfp-isnt-endorsing-meng-challenger-chuck-park-after-all/412259/
2. A Meng aid, Linda Sun, helped Meng get her start in American politics, roughly around the time period 2009 - 2012, before moving into the Governor's Office, under Cuomo in 2018, and stayed there until dismissed by Governor Hochul's Administration in 2022. In 2024 Linda Sun was arrested in her Long Island home and charged with 8 criminal counts, including acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese Communist Party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Sun
3. Grace Meng's father, Jimmy Meng, was an NYS Assemblyman. Grace Meng picked up his seat two years after he left, which hints at the 'inheritance' factor which may be found too often in Queens politics. Her father was taken to court for accepting $80,000 to use his influence to bribe a court official, and then pocketing it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Meng
Grace Meng has not been implicated in her former aide's, nor her father's criminality.
American Israeli Political Action Committee & Grace Meng's Votes
According to Ballotpedia as of March 31, 2026, Grace Meng has raised $1.4 million. And in spite of spending $1.1 million, she still has $1.3 million in cash at hand [prior years of funding]. According to Open Secrets, the American Israeli Political Action Committee [aka AIPAC] is Meng's largest donor. They donated as much to Grace Meng this year, as Chuck Park has raised in total [$279,000] from small donors.
Stop and think about this for a moment. An entity which clearly represents the interests of a foreign nation, donated as much to Meng, as Meng's competitor's American supporters / voters donated to him. Are they buying our government away from us? Are those dollar for dollar numbers a coincidence?
Meng has been a strong supporter of funding Israel and sending them free weapons paid for by you and me, with no strings attached. Billionaire TV News reporters describe our aid as 'purchases' by the Israelis, failing to tell the American people that 79% of those purchases have been paid for by them - the American taxpayer. Since Israelis don't fully fund their own wars, because they convince our pols to, they are able to offer their citizens free healthcare, highly subsidized education, and they allow Israeli citizens to claim religious exemptions to military service, because America is in part, also staffing their wars for them. Meanwhile the American people who are paying for Israeli wars, don't have free healthcare and education, and since the arrival of Donald J. Trump's 2.0 rollout of America Last, Americans are also experiencing significant cutbacks in federal government services. Thank you Grace Meng?
Given how much money AIPAC and Israeli-friendly donors hand out to candidates who favor Israeli weapons and aid packages - with no strings attached and few if any safeguards on how the money is spent - one has to wonder whether some of our own money, is subsequently, indirectly, re-circulated back into the U.S., via donations to Israel friendly candidates, so that the American taxpayer money tree will keep on giving?
I call this priming the pump. You spend some money to get back far more in return, like priming a water well pump, to seal a vacuum, in order to suck the water up out of the well.
Elon Musk famously seemed to do this - priming of the pump - leading up to the 2024 presidential election, when he famously spent a quarter billion dollars in the swing states, in what seemed like a buying the vote effort, to secure the Trump victory. Musk's companies have done $38 billion in business with the federal government, so it's really a pittance compared to the value of the business it seems to secure for him.
Modern Billionaire TV News seems to Function like a Privately Owned Propaganda Press
In the examples above, Israel wins, Musk wins, other billionaires also win, and so do the politicians to whose campaigns they fund. Only we, the American People, the hardworking taxpayers, are the losers.
But in part, it's our own fault for not making sure our information sources are providing us with the full picture, needed to make well informed, intelligent choices before we go to vote. Fully, fairly and accurately informing the American public is something billionaire TV News no longer does very well, it at all. TV News today, is a medium that is currently by, for and of the billionaires.
The billionaire TV News outlets show their viewers a world that only includes the things the billionaires want their viewers to see or know about - often enough leaving out important details that the viewers and voters should know, in order to make the best choices for themselves - not the best choices for the interests of the billionaires. To learn more about how Fox News has manipulated voters' perceptions over the years, see our report series - Billionaire Rupert Murdoch and the Rise of the Propaganda Press. This exposes many of the tricks Murdoch has used over the years to manipulate public perceptions.
This is a timely coincidence, or it could be an example. Grace Meng hasn't been seen at a congressional hearing on TV since February 26, 2025. And somehow, miraculously, on Tueday, June 2, 2026, she magically appears at a highly publicized / televised congressional hearing, only three weeks before the primary.
Why isn't TV News providing equal time by covering Chuck Park's campaign? Because long ago the wealthy owners of the TV Networks changed the rules. Maybe the owners of TV News don't want voters to know there's an appealing, viable choice to Meng. Maybe the billionaire owners of TV News don't want there to be any growth or momentum for what Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Zohran Mamdani have started, because over time, if things keep moving in their direction, the billionaire owners of TV News might have to start paying higher taxes, at tax rates paid by the middle class and the rest of us.
The Meng campaign is fully funded by AIPAC alone, but that's not where the potential for corrupt influence over Meng votes ends. She received another $74,000 in Political Action Committee money, which also frequently represents the selfish interests. TV News calls them the 'special interests', which is another small example of how billionaire TV News distorts viewers' perceptions of the real world. There's nothing 'special' about them - except perhaps that they are even more 'selfish' than the rest of us. So perhaps they should be called the 'selfish interests', since that's what they are.
And then there are Grace Meng's stable of large individual donors, who I didn't have time to research by name, who contributed another $1.4 million to her campaign. Big donors are oftentimes found to be funding the same causes as the PAC's.
Chuck Park Soundly Defeats Grace Meng on a Level Funding Field
Lastly, Grace Meng raised $18,000 from small donors. This is 6% of the amount of small donor contributions that Chuck Park raised, so you know right off the bat who represents, 'We The People'. It's a hands down Chuck Park by 16x ($282,000 / 18,000).
According to Ballotpedia as of March 31, 2026, Chuck Park has raised $282,000 which appears to be mostly, if not entirely from small donors, individuals and fundraising events. That's the 'David' budget in the David v. Goliath battle.
In the photo above or at right you can see a number of the folks who came to the Dumplings and Dialogue campaign event, including the Chuck for Queens volunteer press liaison, Haley [far left], who first contacted me about the campaign. There is a level of excitement and optimism in this campaign, that seems reminiscent of the Mamdani mayoral campaign. And the candidate, and the people who he has drawn to support his campaign, collectively project a calm, casual charisma that I found appealing.
Voting Calculus - Chuck Park's Chances Range Between Fair & Good
But Only You, the Voters, Will Determine the Outcome
The most contested race Meng has faced in congress involved about 232,000 voters in the General Election in 2020. But the primary requires far fewer votes. In 2020 only 46,000 votes were cast, of which Meng received 31,000 of them. Chuck Park has 70,000 Instagram followers, up from 12,000 in November of 2025. If he can mobilize his Instagram followers, he has more than a solid chance of beating Meng.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any polls out about this race as of this writing.
As mentioned above, I asked Chuck what his top priorities were. He told me 1) affordable healthcare via Medicare for All, 2) defund ICE and 3) defund genocide.
He told us he needs volunteers to knock on doors, to make phone calls, to pass out leaflets to fight back against the millions poured into Grace Meng's campaign by the selfish interests. And like all Davids, he could use donations too. He told me that his campaign has enlisted the support of 600 volunteers so far, but they can always use more, and they are going to keep working up until the election on June 23rd, 2026. So there's not much time, but there's still time to get involved. See his website, Chuck [Park] for Queens - to learn how you can play a role in this campaign and election - https://chuckforqueens.com
LINK
Saturday, June 13, 2026 is the last day you'll be able to Register to Vote in the NYC Primary on June 23, 2026. Applications must be received by the NY Board of Elections to be eligible to vote in this election. See - https://elections.ny.gov
It won't be a government by, for and of The People much longer, if the people don't start paying closer attention, and if people don't start getting involved in the democratic process. Thomas Jefferson said that, " ... those who believe they can remain ignorant and free, believe in something that never was, and never shall be ...". Please share.
