Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino declared victory in Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary, defeating former U.S. Representative Rick Lazio in the biggest surprise of the night.
Paladino, a millionaire businessman who had to petition to get his name on the ballot, defeated Lazio, the party favorite, only five months after entering the race. Paladino will now face Democrat Andrew Cuomo in November’s general election.
In New York City, Democrats Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada, who together engineered a controversial coup in the state Senate last year, each conceded their races for the Senate.
Espada is currently facing allegations that he violated labor laws at his non-profit Bronx health clinic, while Monserrate was expelled by the Senate in February in connection with a misdemeanor assault against his girlfriend.
New Yorkers cast their votes Tuesday using new electronic voting machines and scanned paper ballots, introduced as part of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. But Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the day was marred for some voters by what he called “disturbing” reports of polling problems.
Voters in Queens, Brooklyn, and as far away as Westchester and Mount Kisco, N.Y. said they ran into some difficulty voting – with many being turned away from their polling sites.
The mayor said at some city polling sites had broken and missing scanners, emergency ballots and poor customer service. He also said that New Yorkers deserve better for the $77 million the city paid BOE to implement the new voting system, and compared the board to the famously corrupt Tammany Hall.
“That is a royal screw-up and it’s completely unacceptable,” said Bloomberg. “It means some voters waited for hours and other voters may not have a chance to cast their ballots at all. We’ve also gotten reports of broken and missing scanners, emergency ballots and poor customer service.”
BOE officials issued a statement saying they are aware that some polling sites have issues with the new voting system.
Democratic candidate for governor Andrew Cuomo faced no primary challenge, but the GOP primary would decide his challenger in November’s general election. For months, Republican and Conservative gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio had been the front-runner, but as Primary Day arrived he was running neck-and-neck with Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino.
Another contentious contest is the five-way race for the Democratic attorney general nod, where State Senator Eric Schneiderman and Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice lead the way.
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(Source: NY1)
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5 Responses
I dont think it was the “biggest surprise of the night” as they were running close with this guy ahead. The problem is that he isnt as Conservative as NY needs, which means you are voting for Cuomo or Cuomo Lite on Nov 2.
Now the GOP have a zero percent chance of beating Cuomo. If it was Lazio it was 5%. In Delaware also the idiots who voted for O’Donnell gave the Dems a sure victory, this seat was supposed to be a shoe in for the GOP. Thank you for all the fools who voted for the tea party candidates. Now the Dems will keep the Senate.
The big suprise to me is that Paladino is stuck with Lazio’s running mate for Lt. Governor!
The interesting part is whether the Republicans can come together and manage to make at least a credible run against Cuomo, not to mention DioGuardi against Gillibrand – and perhaps more importantly whether the Republicans can retake the State Senate since otherwise the Democrats will have an invitation to do massive gerrymandering since next year is the year for reapportionment.
The left-wing pundits believe that the “tea party” wins will turn out to being a classic “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” and will enable the Democrats to survive with no more than the usual off-year losses (rather than a major rout similar to 1994). Post-primaries, will “Tea party” and traditional Republicans work together, or will they ignore each other’s candidates?????
#2- not so clear – a “tea party” focus means the Republicans will probably avoid non-economic issues (foreign affairs, gays, abortion, immigration) – and it appears that this year focusing on economics is good politics – and the other issues are ones in which Obama is probably closer to mainstream. If the establishment (a.k.a. “country club” or “wall street”) Republicans support people like Paladino and O’Donnell and Rubio, and the “tea party” people support people like Ehrlich (MD) or Whitman (CA) or Kirk (ILL), then the Republicans can still win. Given the common love of Obama’s economic policies, there is a lot to agree on (though on other issues, the Republicans are often badly split).