Reynolds: Tough going for primary ‘winners’

Like Kingston’s mean streets, (apparent) Republican nominee Andi Turco-Levin faces a rough road ahead in the general election. Assuming Democrat Hayes Clement’s whisker-thin six-vote primary victory over challenger Shayne Gallo — with perhaps a little more than a hundred absentee ballots to be counted — holds up, the finalists in November will be running on the same platform.
So which “new Kingston” candidate has the advantage, Democrat Clement with a two-to-one edge in enrollment or Republican Turco-Levin?
Turco-Levin might not have been fully aware of just how tough her primary against Ron Polacco and Rich Cahill Jr. was going to be, but she knows for sure she’s up against it in November. “We’re going to have to work our ass off!” she declared to supporters who had spent a long night worrying that their candidate might not make it.
It’s not over until they count those absentee ballots. There, Clement’s unofficial six-vote margin over Gallo gives him only the slightest advantage. Turco’s 21-vote lead over Ron Polacco is only marginally more comfortable. Did somebody say something about every vote counting?
Yet to be played are wild-card minor-party lines: Gallo’s Independence nomination and Cahill’s Conservative one. Assuming primary-night results hold up, these two major party losers might still have something to say.
Give Gallo credit for running the best primary campaign. Crushed by Clement at the Democratic convention, with the party apparatus working for the nominee and cash-starved, Gallo made a race that had Clement chewing his nails.
And it’s not over, officially.

Divide and conquer
Susan Zimet, the Democratic candidate for supervisor in New Paltz, won the Republican nomination at a GOP caucus last week by one vote. A key to Zimet’s victory was the support of former county Republican chairman Pete Savago, who seconded her nomination. Go figure.