Special Elections in New York on Tuesday Will Decide 11 Races

By Lisa W. Foderaro

Special elections in New York on Tuesday will present voters with nearly a dozen state legislative races from Buffalo to Long Island, and could prove decisive in the Democrats’ yearslong quest to capture all levers of state government.

The vacancies in the State Senate and Assembly are the result of incumbents decamping for other positions. State election officials say Tuesday will see a historic number of contests. “I can’t think of any time that we’ve had this many special elections on a single day,” said John Conklin, a spokesman for the Board of Elections.

The most critical races to the future of Democrats and Republicans are the two for State Senate, one in Westchester County and the other in the Bronx. Democrats have long enjoyed a comfortable margin in the 150-seat Assembly, but control of the Senate has mostly eluded them, because of a power-sharing arrangement between Republicans and eight renegade Democrats.

Despite a technical majority in the Senate, Democrats have taken a back seat to Republicans in the upper chamber, watching as the collaboration between Republicans and the so-called Independent Democratic Conference stymied legislation on issues like childhood sexual abuse and voting rights.

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Source: The New York Times (via Empire Report New York)