Republican education activist Yiatin Chu aims to unseat state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky

State Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky is facing first-time challenger Yiatin Chu in the race for Senate District 11 in northeastern Queens. 

Stavisky has held office for 25 years. She was first elected in 1999, and she has won every election since then. Her challenger, Chu, is a political newcomer who made a name for herself in education advocacy. Taking the senate seat in November will be quite the task for Chu due to Stavisky’s strong incumbency advantage, her legislative record and her relationships with local leaders, which she has had a long time to build. But Senate District 11 is home to a large Asian American population, which has been trending to the right in recent years, and Chu is banking on that trend to carry her to victory. 

“I would make Toby Ann Stavisky a favorite in the race, but it is very competitive, and Democrats can’t take anything for granted,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic consultant.

Education is a core part of both candidates' political platforms. Stavisky is the chair of the state Senate’s Higher Education Committee and worked as a public school teacher in the city for six and a half years before entering politics. In 2019, the same year that Stavisky was named head of the higher education committee, Chu got involved in politics. At the time, her main concern was then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to phase-out the Specialized High School Admissions Test, the standardized test that determines acceptance to the city’s top specialized public high schools.

Black and Latino students make up a relatively small percentage of students at specialized high schools like Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech and the Bronx High School of Science, while Asian students comprise a little over half of the total student body. De Blasio and other progressives have sought to increase racial diversity at specialized high schools by eliminating the admissions test. 

But Chu and other Asian parents saw the attempt to change the admissions system as an example of anti-Asian discrimination, since it would result in a decreased number of Asian students attending the desirable schools. She and other disgruntled parents founded an advocacy group known as Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or “PLACE NYC,” dedicated to preserving the SHSATs and other advanced education policies like the city’s gifted and talented programs.

“My connection as an alumna of Bronx Science pulled me in, and being Asian, and seeing that it was not just about an education admissions fight, but it was a civil rights fight for us – that’s how it started,” Chu told City & State.

Recently, some members of PLACE NYC have also taken up socially conservative positions on gender issues in schools. In April, members of the organization passed a resolution in Manhattan District 2 to reevaluate protections for trans youth in school sports.

Chu is hoping to capitalize on the rightward shift that has taken place in some Asian American communities over the past few years, spurred by the debate over the SHSATs and concerns over public safety following a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chu, who was previously registered as a Democrat, changed her party affiliation to run as a Republican against Stavisky. The question for Chu in November is whether enough Asian voters in District 11 have become disillusioned with the Democrats to power an upset victory. 

“The Asian American vote in Northeast Queens and the city generally is not monolithic,” said Eugene Noh, a political consultant who works with left-leaning Asian American candidates. “(Chu) is going after a small subset of folks who are Chinese-American parents who may have become slightly more conservative over time, who may have disagreements with regard to education or public safety, but I don’t think they represent most of the voters who are going to turn out in November who are Asian American.”

In another state Senate district, against another Democratic candidate, Chu would likely be in a stronger position, but the incumbent Stavisky has represented large Asian American populations in Queens for over two decades, and she has a good relationship with them. Stavisky is not a far left Democrat who would alienate moderate voters. In fact, she agrees with Chu on some of the education issues important to Chu’s base, including the preservation of the city’s specialized high schools and its gifted and talented programs. 

She can also point to her legislative accomplishments in education, such as increasing the income eligibility requirement for the city’s tuition assistance program from $80,000 per year to $125,000 per year and keeping down tuition costs. “In higher education, I’m proudest of the fact that there have been no tuition increases in the public colleges and universities, and we’ve maintained record investments in CUNY and SUNY,” Stavisky said. 

Chu has raised almost $48,000 since launching her campaign, while Stavisky has raised $298,000 – more than six times as much – since the beginning of last year. The veteran senator is certainly in a strong position, but nothing is ever guaranteed and there are elements of the race which favor Chu. 

In 2022, redistricting shook up Stavisky’s district, prompting her to switch from Senate District 16 to Senate District 11. In that cycle, Stavisky faced her most significant challenge in almost a decade, as Republican challenger Stefano Forte managed to capture 43% of the vote. The most recent round of redistricting has since changed District 11 fairly significantly as well – carving away a large section of Flushing, where Stavisky had strong name recognition due to her long tenure as a senator representing District 16, while adding in a large swath of northwestern Queens, which is entirely new territory for the senator.

For a lot of voters in District 11, it will be their first time seeing Stavisky on the ballot. Many Queens neighborhoods in this district are battlegrounds, and each candidate’s campaign will need to differentiate themselves and highlight the issues most important to voters. Outside of education, where both Chu and Stavisky align with constituents, public safety is the most important issue in the district which could drive votes. Chu has criticized Stavisky for supporting criminal justice reform policies like bail reform, which she claims has led to the release of violent criminals. She often brings up the case of Christina Yuna Lee, a woman who was murdered by someone who had previously been arrested and then released from police custody pending trial.

“[Chu] certainly has been a super strong advocate for safe communities and has spoken up a huge amount about not just the education issues that she and I have worked on together, but about the real quality of life issues that have been negatively impacting her community and frankly all the communities in New York around safety,” said Maud Maron, a cofounder of PLACE NYC. 

Stavisky’s public safety platform is more tilted towards gun control and keeping transit safe. On this issue, the candidates’ approaches are more clearly divided along party lines. Polls have found that Republicans are more trusted on issues related to crime, which could serve Chu well. But it’s a presidential election year, and down-ballot candidates will have to account for national political trends that could complicate the race. Voters concerned about bail reform who oppose former President Donald Trump, for example, may just vote a straight Democratic ticket. 

If Chu wins, it could indicate a significant shift in voter sentiment and solidify the narrative around Asian communities’ rightward drift. But political consultants say the more likely scenario is that Stavisky, whose political savvy has kept her in office for a quarter of a century, holds on to her senate seat. “The streets of Northeast Queens are littered with people who have underestimated her,” Noh said.