It’s one of four special legislative elections on Tuesday. He has sought to tie Kaminsky to Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and has said that if Kaminsky is elected state government could fall under the control of Democratic leaders from New York City.
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“This race is too close to call”, he said in a statement.
Kaminsky, a former federal prosecutor who is serving his first term in the Assembly, made corruption a key facet of his campaign and tried repeatedly to link McGrath to Skelos and the scandal-plagued Nassau County GOP.
Kaminsky has relied on his family for some help including his famous great Uncle, comedian and filmmaker, Mel Brooks, who’s doing robo calls.
“Write that down!” Mel urges recipients. “You’re liable to forget”.
The party affiliations of the voters whose absentee ballots are being counted in the race include 1,318 Democrats, 1,169 Republicans, 26 Conservatives and 206 unaffiliated voters.
Substantive issues appeared to take a back seat to the battle for control of the Senate, which may now revert to Democrats with Kaminsky’s victory, depending on whether the break-away, five-member Independent Democratic Conference chooses to rejoin the majority of Democrats to organize the Senate.
With political alliances often fleeting at the Capitol, a loss in the Senate Ninth for the GOP was seen before the election as presenting a major test for Republicans to keep Felder and the IDC senators in line.
The McGrath-Kaminsky race was one of handful of special election contests Tuesday that also included the Lower East Side race to fill the seat of disgraced Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat.
“It came down to the wire, we’re going to poll this out”, Kaminsky said.
Democrat Alice Cancel, a longtime district leader who was backed by key Silver loyalists, including his former chief of staff Judy Rapfogel, faced a strong challenge from Working Families Party candidate Yuh-Line Niou. The district is heavily democratic.
And while massive labor union 1199SEIU promised in 2014 to stop giving campaign cash to Senate Republicans-in an effort to win back the chamber for Democrats-the powerful healthcare union endorsed the Republican, Mr. McGrath, this week. The Republican candidate is businessman Lester Chang.
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Democrat Jaime Williams has won a NY state Assembly seat in Brooklyn. It’s not known if that news will have any effect on the race.
