Tuesday turned out to be a long but rewarding night for Democrats as Kathy Hochul was victorious for the New York State Governor seat, in the most anticipated race of the evening, with 52.73 percent (3,022,429 votes) beating out Republican opponent Lee Zeldin, who received 47.27 percent (2,709,903 votes).
About 300 attendees including IBEW union members, candidates, and other prominent members of the Suffolk County Democratic Party gathered at an upbeat election night event at the IBEW hall located at 100 Corporate Drive in Holtsville.
Other big wins for Democrats included incumbent Letitia James taking the seat for New York State attorney general with 54.15 percent (3,054,542 votes) against Republican candidate Michael Henry who got 45.85 percent (2,586,224 votes). Democratic candidate Monica Martinez won for New York State Senator in the 4th district in a tight race with 50.81 percent (35,534 votes) beating out Republican Wendy Rodriguez who got 49.19 percent (34,398 votes).
An upset for Democrats was Jackie Gordon losing the U.S. Congress race with only 39.45 percent (90,665 votes) to Republican candidate, incumbent Andrew Garbarino who received 60.55 percent (139,166 votes).
Martinez was optimistic at the event even after just finding out along with the rest of the attendees that election results for most races were not expected to come in until after 2 a.m.
“The emotions are still running high. We don’t know what we have. As for the preliminary numbers, we were doing well, and hopefully at the end of the night, at three in the morning, we’ll know who won, and hopefully I can get back to Albany and continue the work I started,” said Martinez.
Locally, the recent cyberattack to the Suffolk County website affected the timing of results from the county. Around 11 p.m. Suffolk County Democratic Committee chairman Rich Schaffer spoke to the crowd gathered at the Democratic watch party.
“The Board of Elections just informed me that we probably won’t know any results for Suffolk County until at least two or two thirty in the morning,” Schaffer said. “And this is because they have to drive everything back from every polling place in the county and download it at the board of elections in Yaphank.”
“They have some results but they’re not releasing them. They have the early voting results and the absentee ballot results but they made a decision not to release anything until they have a substantial amount of results back into the building and then they’ll start posting them on the public website.”
The full unofficial results of Tuesday’s election can be found on the Suffolk County Board of Elections website.
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