Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins & Deputy Leader Gianaris (photo: NYS Senate Photography)
New York Democrats are poised to retain a comfortable majority in the State Senate but could lose the supermajority they have held since the 2020 elections.
Senate Democrats headed into the general election with 42 members in the 63-seat legislative chamber, and needed to hold on to that number to keep their supermajority. Republicans held 20 seats, while one that was most recently held by a Democrat was vacant.
On Wednesday, with most votes tallied, Democrats were victorious in at least 40 seats, with two more races that were too close to call, one of which is headed to a recount.
“The voters of New York have spoken, electing another strong Democratic Majority in the State Senate,” said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, in a statement that said her conference would hold at least 40 seats. “In these unprecedented times in our country, the people know that the Senate Democrats have and will continue to deliver meaningful results.”
Tuesday’s election was the first general election contest with new district lines in place, created after a chaotic redistricting process that shook up the political landscape across the state. While Democrats were unable to draw districts as they saw fit, they were still helped by the fact that a more objective process still undid past gerrymandering that favored Republicans and population trends in New York meant a greater New York City concentration.
Two new districts, the 17th and 59th, were created in New York City, where Democrats hold a massive voter enrollment advantage over Republicans, while in other regions, several incumbents of both parties refused to run for reelection after seeing their districts change drastically. In two cases, incumbent legislators — one of each party — were matched against each other.
Given many factors, Republicans saw an opportunity to flip several seats and increase their numbers, particularly on Long Island where Democrats struggled badly in local elections last year and have held some Senate seats only for a few years after strong performances in 2018 and 2020. Republicans saw that electorate and other moderate and conservative areas within New York City and its northern suburbs as the prime audience for their message on tackling crime and inflation, two issues that have dominated races up and down the ballot in this year’s election.
Republicans were hopeful that the election would lead to a much narrower Democratic majority, putting them within striking distance for the next state election cycle in 2024. But while Republicans did flip several Long Island seats, their gains were mostly matched by Democrats elsewhere, with the two races still to be called. GOP leadership had called 14 State Senate races competitive going into the election. A spokesperson for Senate Republicans declined to comment for this story.
State Senate Movement
In the new 59th District, which covers parts of Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, Democrat Kristen Gonzalez ran unopposed in the general election and took the seat.
But in the 17th District, a new Asian plurality area, Democrat Iwen Chu currently holds a mere 215 vote lead over Republican Vito LaBella, with the race potentially heading to a recount. That race was one of several — the others in the Assembly or statewide — where Republicans did well in Southern Brooklyn. Many Democrats had been confident that Chu would win by a comfortable margin.
In the 50th State Senate District, which covers parts of Onondaga and Oswego counties, Democratic State Senator John Mannion trails his Republican challenger Rebecca Shiroff by just 396 votes, triggering a recount for the race.
On Long Island, two Democratic incumbents lost their seats. In the 7th District in northern Nassau County, Democratic State Senator Anna Kaplan lost to Republican Jack Martins, a former state senator himself. Democratic State Senator John Brooks, who represented the 8th District but ran for the new 5th District after redistricting, lost to Republican Steve Rhoads. (Democrat Jim Gaughran, who represented the 5th district, declined to run for reelection.)
In the new 8th District, the race went to Republican State Senator Alexis Weik, who defeated Democrat John Alberts.
In the 9th District in Nassau County, which was left vacant after Democratic State Senator Todd Kaminsky resigned from office for a private sector job earlier this year, Republican Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick won on Tuesday, beating Democrat Kenneth Moore.
Democrats did notch a crucial win in Long Island. Monica Martinez, a former Democratic state Senator who previously represented the 4th District, won the open race for the new 3rd District in Suffolk County, defeating Republican Wendy Rodriguez.
In the 38th District in Rockland County, Democratic State Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick also lost his race to Republican William Weber Jr., who had unsuccessfully challenged Reichlin-Melnick in 2020.
But incumbent Republicans also lost some races on Tuesday as they faced off against sitting Democratic senators because of new district lines. Republican State Senator Sue Serino lost to Democratic State Senator Michelle Hinchey in the new 41st District, which includes parts of Greene, Ulster, Dutchess, and Columbia counties. Similarly, in the new 61st District, Republican State Senator Ed Rath lost to Democratic State Senator Sean Ryan.
And other Democrats who Republicans had thought they would unseat, particularly Senators Pete Harckham, Rachel May, James Skoufis, Lea Webb, and Toby Stavisky, held onto their seats.
Assembly Races
In the 150-seat Assembly, Democrats also had a supermajority ahead of the election, with 107 members in the chamber to Republicans’ 43 seats. There too Democrats lost some seats, though Republicans need to make an eight-seat gain to disrupt the supermajority.
Though many races remain too close to call and ballots remain to be counted, Republicans won some competitive races including in New York City.
In District 23, which covers Howard Beach and Rockaway in Queens, Democratic Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato lost to Republican Tom Sullivan by just 246 votes.
In District 45, which covers Gravesend and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, Democratic Assemblymember Steven Cymbrowitz, a 22-year incumbent, lost his seat to Republican Michael Novakhov.
In District 49, which covers Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, Bensonhurst, and Borough Park in Brooklyn, longtime incumbent Democratic Assemblymember Peter Abbate Jr. lost to Republican Lester Chang.
In District 63, in Staten Island’s Mid-Island region, Democratic Assemblymember Michael Cusick did not run for reelection. The seat flipped on Tuesday with Republican Sam Pirozzolo defeating Democrat Vincent Argenziano with a healthy margin.
One race that remains to be decided is in District 46, which covers Fort Hamilton, parts of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, Coney Island and Sea Gate in South Brooklyn. Incumbent Democratic Assemblymember Mathylde Frontus is trailing her Republican challenger Alec Brook-Krasny, a former Democratic Assemblymember, by about 797 votes. Frontus has not conceded the race and tweeted Wednesday that she will “wait until every vote is counted.”
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Gov. Hochul sworn in, August 2021 (photo: Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)
Democrat Kathy Hochul, New York's first female governor, was elected to the position for the first time Tuesday, winning a full term in a race that put Democrats' control over the traditionally blue bastion to the test.
The race was called just after 11 p.m. Tuesday, with Hochul beating her Republican challenger, U.S. Rep Lee Zeldin, by an unclear margin given lags in vote reporting from Zeldin’s home county of Suffolk. By early Wednesday morning when most votes were counted, Hochul's margin over Zeldin was 52-47%, largely due to her advantage in New York City.
Despite several Republicans gains in New York races for the House of Representatives, as expected in the first mid-term election of Democratic President Joe Biden’s tenure, many Democrats including Hochul won in New York and beyond. Democrats overall had a far better night than expected nationally, though Republican wins in New York may be key to tipping the balance of power in the House, where Democrats currently have a slim majority. While several Democratic state legislators appear to have lost their seats, the party will continue to have large majorities in both houses of the State Legislature.
Hochul, a native of the Buffalo area and the first upstate governor in many decades, will again be joined in office by her running-mate, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado.
“I’m deeply honored to be the first elected female Governor in New York history,” Hochul said in an email to supporters on Tuesday night after some outlets called the race and she declared victory on Twitter, then made a victory speech at her Manhattan campaign event.
While Hochul ran on a platform of preserving reproductive rights, gun control, and democratic institutions, touting achievements from her initial year-plus as governor, Zeldin focused his campaign almost exclusively on rising crime and cost of living.
Hochul accrued votes on both the Democratic and Working Families Party ballot lines under New York's fusion voting system, while Zeldin appeared on the Republican and Conservative Party lines.
No Republican has won a statewide election in New York since Governor George Pataki won a third term in 2002. Coming into Election Day, hopes were high that Zeldin would break that streak, despite the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans two-to-one across the state, and the GOP is even outnumbered by the number of party-unaffiliated registered voters.
Hochul's victory Tuesday capped off an election cycle that began not long after she took office in August, 2021 after the resignation of Governor Andrew Cuomo amid several scandals. Hochul, who won two statewide elections on a ticket with Cuomo as the lieutenant governor running-mate, solidified her position as the State Democratic Party's standard-bearer after handily staving off two primary challengers earlier this year. Throughout the primary and into the general election, she raised a massive sum of money, spending much of it on television ads.
Hochul spent months touting her record on abortion access and gun safety and casting Zeldin as an anti-choice, pro-gun Trump acolyte and 2020 election denier. She also highlighted a series of what she touted as achievements from her early tenure, including an expansion of child care and major economic development projects throughout the state, including for a new Buffalo Bills stadium and a deal to bring a massive microchip manufacturing plant to central New York, both with major state subsidies. Throughout the campaign, Hochul declined to offer a vision for a full term beyond a continuation of policies and projects already in place or in motion. She also took limited steps to more directly address the major criticisms Zeldin was running on, namely that she had not done enough to bring down crime or the cost of living amid an inflation spike.
"Because of you, we will keep making progress – breaking down barriers, breaking glass ceilings, helping New York achieve the greatness it is capable of," Hochul said to New Yorkers during her victory speech Tuesday night. "And I will lead with strength and compassion, not anger and fear. Together, we will ensure our values are put to work to lift up all and leave no one behind. Building a state where we can afford to raise our families. Where we create good paying jobs in the industries of tomorrow – from Long Island to NYC, to Syracuse to Buffalo. Where we expand safe, decent housing for all. Where our kids succeed in school and reach their full potential. Where we live without fear, safe in our neighborhoods and our subways with illegal guns off our street. Where our fundamental rights are protected and women can make decisions about our own bodies."
Polls and campaign finance data showed the race narrowing in recent weeks. Those numbers appeared to prompt a flurry of additional campaign activity by Hochul, including appearances by major Democratic Party officials on the campaign trail alongside her.
Zeldin, whose lieutenant governor running-mate was former NYPD inspector Alison Esposito, blamed a pandemic-era rise in crime on changes to state bail laws made by Democrats in recent years despite data showing no significant connection between bail reform and crime or rearrest rates. He also called for the repeal of other criminal justice reforms like limits on solitary confinement and changes to the state's Raise the Age law. Zeldin frequently said he would remove Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a campaign line echoing calls from Republican governors and candidates in other states.
Hochul consistently emphasized the need for tempered reform and pointed to her own successful push to give judges more discretion in setting bail, particularly for alleged repeat offenders.
"You can either work on keeping people scared or you can focus on keeping them safe,” she said last month at the only debate of the general election. She has also pointed to her work with New York City Mayor Eric Adams to convene other local, state, and federal officials in a multi-state taskforce to stem the flow of illegal guns. And she repeatedly painted Zeldin as a foe of gun safety, having voted against a ban on assault weapons and failing to appear for a vote on bipartisan gun safety legislation.
In the months leading up to Election Day, Zeldin largely shied away from discussing specifics on his policies related to abortion. On the debate stage in October, he refused to say whether he would sign abortion restrictions as governor or whether he would appoint a health commission dedicated to reproductive rights. To try to undercut Hochul’s attacks on the issue, he took the remarkable step of releasing a campaign ad promising not to change the state’s abortion law if elected governor, belying his long-time anti-abortion record.
Outside of crime, the congressman's biggest focus was economics, saying he'd lower state spending, cut taxes, and spur job growth through reduced regulations. He called for reversing New York’s ban on fracking for natural gas and approving new fossil fuel pipelines. On the campaign trail, Hochul emphasized the steps her administration has taken to ease pressure on New Yorkers' wallets, including expediting a middle class tax cut approved under Cuomo, a property tax rebate approved in the state budget earlier this year, and temporarily suspending the state gas tax.
She also hit Zeldin for his record in congress on economic issues, including his votes against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, while also stressing her efforts on fighting climate change and moving New York to renewable energy, including many job-creating projects.
Hochul also spent some of the campaign fending off attacks about her ethical record, from her time in the Cuomo administration to her misguided appointment of Brian Benjamin as her first lieutenant governor to her massive fundraising from entities with state business including specific allegations of pay-to-play.
Hochul's win was buoyed in part by the Working Families Party, which needed to garner 130,000 votes or 2% of the total in the governor's race, whichever higher, in order to keep its ballot line. The WFP appears to have met the necessary threshold, which was raised in 2020, and celebrated its win on Tuesday night. As did Hochul, even if the margin was closer than she may have liked.
“Now, this same grassroots movement that came together to build a new era for New York will continue fighting to safeguard reproductive rights, protect our communities from gun violence, create opportunities for working families, and so much more in the months and years ahead,” Hochul said in the Tuesday night email to supporters.
"In closing," she said during her victory speech, "the lesson of tonight’s victory is that given the choice, New Yorkers refused to go backwards in our long march toward progress."
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
Ben Max contributed to this story.
Note: this story has been updated.
Tom DiNapoli, Letitia James, and Chuck Schumer
Beyond the top of the ticket governor's race that has gotten most of the attention, Democrats running for New York's other statewide offices on the ballot also prevailed Tuesday night.
Though some of the races appear tighter than Democrats might have hoped in a state where they outnumber Republicans two to one, the wins come in an election year where many political dynamics favored the GOP.
Incumbents U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, State Attorney General Letitia James, and State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli each won against their Republican challengers, all of whom were underfunded outsiders to the state's political scene.
The three Democratic incumbents each enjoyed sizable funding and polling leads throughout the campaign season, but won at smaller margins than they may have expected coming into this election year. Republicans appear to be picking up several seats in New York races for the House of Representatives and State Legislature.
Chuck Schumer
Schumer’s expected win is part of the larger picture of Senate control playing out across the country, with roughly a third of the upper chamber’s seats on the ballot and Schumer’s position as majority leader hanging in the balance. The Senate is currently effectively split 50-50 with the Vice President, Democrat Kamala Harris, able to break ties as needed and therefore having made Schumer majority leader over the last nearly two years.
Schumer, New York's senior senator, was elected to a fifth term Tuesday, beating Republican opponent Joe Pinion, a conservative news commentator. As of about midnight and votes still being counted, Schumer had a preliminary 56-41% lead. (Junior New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand was not on the ballot this year as Senate six-year terms are staggered.)
A Brooklynite, Schumer maintained his strong polling and funding lead even as other Democrats faced tighter races. In recent months he has touted major federal incentives for semiconductor manufacturing in upstate New York and funding for Broadway stages and other performance venues hit hard by the pandemic.
Schumer shored up his popularity with some big wins nationally and for New York in his two years as majority leader, including the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan gun safety law, and more. In his 23rd year in office, he is the first Jewish person and first New Yorker to lead the Senate majority. It is unclear as of midnight on election night whether he will retain that position given unknown results of several Senate elections around the country.
Pinion's campaign was focused largely on school choice, particularly charter school expansion, and claims that Democrats including Schumer have not done enough to combat crime and inflation. The Yonkers native also talked about literacy, rural health care, and illegal drugs on the campaign trail.
Letitia James
James won a second term as New York's top attorney, beating Republican Michael Henry, a commercial litigator from Queens. With votes still being counted, James held a preliminary 54-43.5% lead.
James, the first woman and Black woman to win statewide elected office, has made a name for herself by holding to account powerful officials like then-Governor Andrew Cuomo and former President Donald Trump, as well as institutions like the NRA, pharmaceutical companies, and others.
The Brooklynite waged a quiet campaign against Henry – she was the only statewide candidate to refuse to debate her opponent – with a focus on her accomplishments in office defending reproductive rights, environmental safeguards, and state gun laws. The night before Election Day she held a get-out-the-vote rally in Flatbush, Brooklyn, with Schumer, Mayor Eric Adams, and a slew of local Democratic leaders. It was one of only a small number of campaign events James took part in.
Henry campaigned almost exclusively on fighting violent crime, government corruption, and the rising cost of living. While offering few policy specifics, he was able to ride a wave of concern about crime and the economy that buoyed Republicans, especially Zeldin and Henry. By contrast, in the Democratic wave year of 2018, James won her first election to the Attorney General’s office 62-35% over Republican Keith Wofford.
Tom DiNapoli
DiNapoli won his fourth full term as state comptroller Tuesday, with initial results showing a 56-40% margin against Republican Paul Rodriguez, a former Wall Street investor. As the state's fiscal watchdog, he is responsible for auditing state spending, reviewing and approving contracts, and managing state debt, the pension system, and payroll. DiNapoli, who has held the office since being appointed in 2007, ran on his record of "steady" management and oversight, exposing corruption and waste, and support for greater oversight powers.
Rodriguez criticized DiNapoli for what he said was failing to rein in fraud and wasteful spending and not holding his fellow Democrats accountable. His campaign focused on promises to combat pay-to-play corruption, professionalize state pension fund management, and increase budget oversight and transparency about state debt and pension obligations.
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette