Rep. Charles Rangel, a political icon in New York City and beyond, died on May 26, 2025 at age 94. One of my first assignments for The Associated Press was reporting from his Harlem campaign headquarters on his final primary election night in 2014. Here’s what I wrote at the time:
NEW YORK — Rep. Charles Rangel waited in an apartment, high above the chanting masses, as the early returns trickled in from what he pledged — and his wife insisted — would be the final primary of his five-decade career.
Alma Rangel sat by his side, along with former New York City Mayor David Dinkins — Rangel’s good friend and the last of his compatriots from the “Gang of Four” prominent Harlem politicians.
But the results the 84-year-old Democrat saw in that room Tuesday night trumped any sense of nostalgia or history he might have had.
For nearly two hours after the polls closed, Rangel waited, fretted and pondered the odds, geography and demographic variables of victory and defeat.
He wondered which precincts had already reported results, which were still out and whether those not counted were where the bulk of his voters lived.
And, Rangel admitted later, he pondered whether his once strongly unified 13th Congressional District had split along racial lines between pro-Rangel blacks and Hispanics supporting his Dominican-born opponent, Adriano Espaillat.
“I was scared as hell,” Rangel recalled, after the results turned in his favor and he declared victory. “The numbers weren’t going right.”
The swing in the results — from an early edge for Espaillat, to a Rangel lead of fewer than 2,000 votes with all but absentee and affidavit ballots counted — paralleled the wily political veteran’s wild final night as a candidate for office.
What began in a secluded room with family and close confidantes — as most candidates’ election nights do — sprawled onto the stage of Rangel’s Harlem campaign headquarters midway through the local 11 o’clock newscasts.
Barely half the precincts in New York’s 13th Congressional District had been counted but Rangel felt he needed to be with the people, on the stage in the basement gymnasium that his campaign converted for the occasion.
“I looked at my wife and said, ‘Why are we upstairs?’” Rangel said, explaining the unorthodox approach to the crowd.
“The question was: do we leave all of you down here sweating it out while were upstairs, separate from you, sweating it out?” he added. “I said, ‘what the heck, let’s sweat it out together.’”
And so went Emcee Rangel’s political variety hour, complete with stream of consciousness rambling and “This Is Your Life”-style tributes from a parade of supporters, including the 86-year-old Dinkins, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and the city’s public advocate, Letitia James.
Rangel, a veteran of Korea and two-dozen political campaigns, was filibustering against uncertain fate until he could be sure enough — or, as sure as he could be — to let the red, white and blue balloons fall, the crowds cheer and the music play.
“Happy,” the cheerful Pharrell Williams tune from the movie “Despicable Me 2” became the evening’s de facto anthem, popping up between mixes of hip hop, Latin jazz and disco, including the fitting Donna Summer hit, “Last Dance.”
But Rangel, the master showman who long ago earned the nickname Lion of Lenox Avenue for his fierce devotion to his Harlem constituents, toyed with the idea of victory — with the notion of declaring himself the winner — until the end.
He called Rep. Gregory Meeks, himself a primary winner Tuesday, to the podium to deliver the news. Meeks, recalling Rangel’s time as head of the House’s powerful Ways and Means Committee, chanted: “The chairman has won! The chairman has won!”
Rangel — after rambling a few minutes more about moving the Statue of Liberty to Washington Heights (“where it belongs”) and fighting to protect New York’s view of the New Jersey Palisades — gave the people assembled before him what they wanted: a victory lap, one final time.
“This was your victory,” he declared. “This is your Congressman.”
Rangel made his declaration — at long last — without hearing from Espaillat. The runner up by about 1,000 votes in their 2012 matchup, Espaillat refused to concede Tuesday.
The Associated Press did not declare a winner because the city Board of Elections was not able say how many absentee and affidavit ballots were still outstanding.
Rangel later told reporters he was inspired by the New York cable news station NY1’s decision to call the race in his favor and joked with a reporter from CNN, which had not settled the contest, that her network was “way behind the curve!”
Instead of a challenge, Rangel said, “Sen. Espaillat should be saying that NY1 declared me a victor.”
Rangel eased from the stage around midnight, beaming like a weary prizefighter on the winning end of a late-round decision.
Adam Clayton Powell IV, the son of Rangel’s legendary predecessor, declared the battle with Espaillat more exhilarating than Muhammad Ali’s legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” and “Thrilla in Manila.”
Corner men, in the form of beefy bodyguards and frantic campaign aides, parted a fast-swelling sea of supporters and photographers as Rangel turned a corner and passed a campaign poster picturing him in an equally ebullient mood.
They directed him toward a camera riser, near the top of the key on the gymnasium’s basketball court, and a throng of reporters.
Rangel, reiterating that he had run his last campaign, relayed an exchange with his wife as they headed to the polls at the start of his extraordinary final day as a candidate.
“I told my wife this morning, and I can hardly believe that I said it because it wasn’t thought out, but I said ‘Honey, this is the last time I’m going to be voting for me!’” he said.
At last, room for nostalgia on a milestone day.
Michael Sisak 