John Liu Hungry For Votes And Pizza In Campaign Videos

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — John Liu may have the momentum, but he's also got an appetite. The Democratic nominee for northeast Queens' 11th State Senate District has taken to chowing down while talking issues in a series of campaign videos.

The roughly 20-second spots posted to Twitter and Facebook feature Liu, a former city comptroller, taking a break from a hearty snack to discuss abortion rights, education funding or small businesses, punctuated by a bite of whatever he's eating.

A video posted Sunday addressees the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, which had just occurred a day before. Wearing a napkin as a bib, Liu stops mid-bite to lament the horrific crime that left 11 people dead.

"We have problems, but rather than point fingers, we need to come together and figure out how to move forward," Liu says, holding a partially eaten half of a pastrami sandwich.

Liu has posted six other videos since last week. In one he eats what appears to be a granola bar outside his old school on a blustery day. In another, shot in a diner, he talks about the importance of protecting mom-and-pop businesses with a sumptuous plate of eggs, bacon and potatoes.

In a spot posted to Facebook on Oct. 24, he folds up a slice of pizza and asks voters to back him in Tuesday's election. "I'm not Taylor Swift, but I think voting is cool, and as state senator, I'm gonna make it easier with automatic registration and early voting," Liu says.

"Damn it, vote!" he adds before chomping on the slice.

Liu is vying for the Senate seat against Republican hopeful Vickie Paladino and the incumbent, Sen. Tony Avella. Liu beat Avella in September's Democratic primary, but the fourth-term senator is soldiering on under the Independence and Women's Equality parties.

The spots were shot "on the go" when Liu would take a break from campaigning to grab a bite, said Heather Stewart, a spokeswoman for his campaign. His remarks were off the cuff, she said, but the foods weren't meant to match the topics.

They're "just all things that John likes to eat," Stewart said.

The videos were conceived for a new political ad platform on Facebook, Stewart said. The platform ran into some technological problems, but the campaign decided to share them anyway, she said.

"I think they’re the right amount of time to watch and commit to, with the 20 seconds," Stewart said. "And they have people curious about John."

Liu took some flak on Twitter for his video on the Pittsburgh shooting. To some users, it was insensitive that he was munching on pastrami while discussing an anti-Semitic attack.

But Stewart said that's just Liu's favorite kind of sandwich.

"It wasn’t our intent to be flip about a national tragedy," she said.

The 11th District is one of six in which progressive primary challengers defeated incumbent Democrats who belonged to the Independent Democratic Conference, a now-defunct breakaway faction that aligned itself with Senate Republicans for years.

There are about 121,000 more active Democratic voters in the district than Republicans, state Board of Elections figures show.

(Lead image: John Liu is pictured in 2015. Photo by Dennis Van Tine/MediaPunch/IPX)