Election: Biaggi wins in state senate; Democrats sweep statewide posts; Miner/Volpe hit 50,000-vote goal
Midterm races in New York State brought a sweep of Democratic victories, most notably for PMHS alumna Alessandra Biaggi in the local state senate race and Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
As of midnight, Biaggi had a commanding lead in balloting for the 34th District state senate seat, winning 71 percent of the vote with 91 percent of precincts reporting. Republican Richard Ribustello was in second with 14.3 percent, and incumbent State Sen. Jeff Klein, who lost in the Democratic primary to Biaggi, was pulling in 7.0 percent on the Independent ticket.
Cuomo, the incumbent Democrat, and Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand both cruised to victory in their respective reelection campaigns, according to numerous national news media outlets. Each were expected to achieve wide margins of victory overall. In other statewide news, Thomas DiNapoli lead his race for state comptroller, and Letitia James took a wide margin over her nearest opposition in the race to replace disgraced former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. As of this writing, Democrats lead in 21 of the 27 House seats statewide.
Notably, the SAM ticket for governor and lieutenant governor of former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner and Pelham Mayor Michael Volpe pulled in more than 50,000 votes, giving SAM a line on the ballot for candidates for the next four years without having to go through the petition process. Ballot access was a key goal of the Miner/Volpe campaign.
Also locally, Congressman Eliot Engel, who stands to take the gavel of the House Foreign Relations Committee as the Democrats won the House, was one of more than a dozen incumbents who ran with no major party opposition.
At the statewide level, no specific number has been yet released on voter turnout. However, throughout the state, long lines were seen at polling places. Also statewide, there were reported issues of failing ballot scanners, forcing voters to leave their ballots with polling officials and hoping that they will be scanned. Voters were also forced to wait in the rain until some polling machines could be fixed.
Nick Lieggi is a freshman at Oxford College of Emory University and was a member of the PMHS class of 2020. He began his journalism career at the Pelham...
