New York: Crippa on the podium, and a Comites with just one list

For Italians in New York these are busy days. Sunday the marathon, today the midterms, a month from now the vote for the Comites, the elected council that represents Italian citizens in the consular district. Three very different events with one thing in common: they show how much the Italian community counts in this city, and how much it could count if it made itself heard.

Thirteen seconds behind Almgren

The sports news is Yeman Crippa. On Sunday 1 November the Italian finished the TCS New York City Marathon in second place in 2:06:14, just thirteen seconds behind Sweden's Andreas Almgren, who won in 2:06:01 on his debut at the distance. Third was Kamohelo Mofolo of Lesotho. It is the best result by an Italian in New York in years: the last Italian on the podium was Eyob Faniel, third in 2021. In the women's race Kenya's Sheila Chepkirui won for the second time in the Big Apple, with Giovanna Epis in eleventh.

Then there are all the others, the ones not running for the podium. There were 61,146 finishers, the largest number ever recorded at a marathon, and 2,360 of them were Italian: once again the largest foreign nation, ahead of France with 2,034. The figure is slightly down on recent years, when 2,567 Italians crossed the line in 2025 and 2,585 in 2024. Still a small army, made up of runners who flew in from Italy for the occasion and Italians who live in New York, easy to spot in Central Park by the flags on the barriers.

America votes today, but not everyone

Today, Tuesday 3 November, the United States elects the House, a third of the Senate and many governors. In New York State the Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul faces Republican Bruce Blakeman, Nassau County Executive, endorsed by Donald Trump; polls in early October had Hochul ahead by around ten points.

It is worth repeating, because the question keeps coming up in the community groups: only US citizens can vote, dual citizens included. People living here on a green card, even for many years, cannot. For many recently arrived Italians the midterms are a game watched from the sidelines, even when the issues, from the cost of living to tariffs, hit close to home.

The deadline to ask for a ballot is tomorrow, and without that request the envelope never arrives.

The Comites and the single list

The vote that does concern every Italian citizen registered as resident here is the 4 December election for the New York Comites, whose district covers New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Bermuda and which will elect 18 members. The campaign started uphill. Running required at least 200 authenticated signatures, and of the three lists in the race only one cleared the bar: Lista Civica Tricolore, led by Paolo Ribaudo, with 21 candidates and 280 signatures filed, admitted by the electoral committee on 8 and 9 October.

Left out were Orizzonti e Radici, close to outgoing president Barbara Pelachin Marciandi and vice-president Ornella Fado, and Silvana Mangione's Italiani Insieme. As La Voce di New York reported, both complained about the limited hours allowed for collecting and authenticating signatures. "We are being somewhat ignored," Fado said; for Mangione the two weeks available were "too little".

The fact remains that the vote is on 4 December, and that you have to ask to take part: the deadline to be added to the electoral roll is tomorrow, 4 November, and without that request the envelope never arrives. Requests go to [email protected], with a signed copy of an ID document. Counting begins on 5 December.

A community that fills the marathon with more than two thousand people but struggles to gather two hundred signatures for its own council has some questions to ask itself. So, probably, does the consulate, which opens and closes those counters.

Sources: NYRR via Marathonworld; Corriere dello Sport; CBS New York; Consulate General of Italy in New York; La Voce di New York; Fatti Nostri.