Ulster Democrats on election night had something to cheer about, other than the president’s resounding win, even if final results might not be, well, final, for several more days.
Surprise front-runner Cecilia Tkaczyk absolutely blitzed Republican favorite George Amedore in the contest for state Senate in the new 46th (and 63rd overall) Senate District. With a little more help from her absentee ballot friends, she could carry Ulster by 10,000 votes. But would it be enough to offset Amedore’s Republican strength in his home Assembly district? As Tuesday rolled toward midnight, Amedore headquarters was calling the election too close to call, an ominous sign for Republicans. As dawn broke, Tkaczyk, a Duanesburg school board member, held an unofficial 139-vote lead. Who would have thought? Absentees can go any which way, but they usually favor the leader on election night.
Congressional candidate Julian Schreibman and judicial hopeful Mike Kavanagh had something in common: they needed big wins in Ulster in order to have any chance in their respective races. Despite a strong run in Ulster, unofficial returns had Republican Chris Gibson leading by 138,000 to 120,000, district-wide.
Gibson, a retired army officer, is a proponent of boots on the ground, and it paid off on Election Day. “We were hoping to hit 100,000 doorways and we almost made it,” he said.
Democrat Schreibman, to the surprise of some locals, did slightly better than the Republican judge, copping more than 29,000 votes to Kavanagh’s 28,153. But it wasn’t enough. Democrat-dominated Albany County carried the day for Democratic judges.
Schreibman, incidentally, showed up after midnight at a Democratic “victory party” at the Holiday Inn Tuesday night. A Gibson spokesperson said Schreibman officially conceded at around 12:20 a.m.
I didn’t hold out much hope for Ulster County charter amendment approval, but after the smoke cleared, almost 60 percent voted in favor.
With final figures due in a few days, we’ll have more to chew on next edition.
Bad hair
Got a nice “Dear Friends” mailing the week before the election from Joelle Amedore, wife of the state Senate candidate. Joelle was complaining about the “disgusting attacks and distortions” being put out by the opposition. (For the most part, they were talking about George Amedore’s right-of-center voting record as an assemblyman.)
The tome extolled George as husband and father. Should I want to get to know him myself, it suggested, I could call the enclosed number. I called. A recorded George answered, but never called back.
While on the subject of “distortions,” the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, which funded at least two-thirds of Amedore’s million-dollar campaign, somehow managed to find and showcase a really bad photo of Tkaczyk sporting an ugly mullet. George, of course, always looks like he stepped out of the cover of GQ, nary a hair out of place.