Democrats declare victory in historic fight for State Senate

Nov. 07--ALBANY -- Democrats come January will seize control of the state Capitol after Republicans suffered major losses in key state Senate races, forcing a flip in the partisan leadership of the 63-member house after a century of GOP domination.

The defeats put the Democrats, a majority of whose ranks come from New York City and its close-in suburbs, in command of the state Assembly, the Senate and, with his re-election Tuesday, in the governor's mansion following Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's third term re-election victory.

Democrats have vowed quick action come January on a number of policy items, from abortion rights expansion and early voting in elections to legalization of recreational marijuana.

Democrats needed a net pickup of only one seat to assume control of the Senate's majority. Going into Election Day, Republicans and Democrats each had 31 seats, but the GOP was kept in power with the vote of a renegade Democrat from Brooklyn.

With several of her candidates having won or leading in districts long controlled by Republicans, the leader of the Senate Democrats at 11 p.m. declared victory for her party.

"The voters of New York State have spoken and they have elected a clear Democratic majority to the State Senate," said Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester County Democrat who is set to become the Senate's leader in two months.

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, meanwhile, seemed to be conceding.

The Long Island Republican called the results "disappointing," and added: "This election is over, but our mission is not. Senate Republicans will never stop advocating for the principles we believe in or the agenda that New Yorkers and their families deserve."

Within a couple hours after polls closed at 9 p.m., the end of the GOP's Senate reign was becoming clear. The sole Republican from Brooklyn, incumbent Senator Martin Golden, saw an early lead slowly evaporate.

In an Orange County-based district with an open race, the Democratic candidate, Assemblyman James Skoufis, was comfortably ahead of his Republican opponent. In the Rochester area, incumbent Sen. Richard Funke unexpectedly faced a closed contest, though he appears to have won once the voting from a small, GOP-leaning portion of the district from Ontario County was counted later in the evening.

But the big story for the Democrats came on Long Island, where Republicans only two years ago held all nine seats. By Wednesday morning, it appears that number could stand at three in a region that has produced two Senate majority leaders in a row -- Flanagan and Dean Skelos, who is heading to prison on a corruption conviction.

In Long Island's eastern half in Suffolk County, which two years ago backed President Trump in his election two years ago, Democratic county legislator Monica Martinez defeated Assemblyman Dean Murray in a long-reliable GOP district whose incumbent left Albany this year to return to the U.S. Navy.

In Long Island's Nassau County, Democrats beat back a challenge against a freshman senator, John Brooks; Republicans invested heavily in that seat as part of the retain-the-Senate plan. Besides that effort not working for the Republicans, three GOP incumbents, including the powerful heads of the Senate education and health care committees, were heading to defeat in counting still underway early Wednesday morning.

Precisely how many seats the Democrats will end up with was still to be determined in final counting overnight or perhaps with paper ballot counting in the weeks ahead, but they will have a solid majority of likely 35 or more members.

The races, and money, were focused heavily on Long Island, Brooklyn, the Hudson Valley and Syracuse areas, where Republicans -- except one race -- were on the defensive. The Republicans also found themselves having to engage heavily in five districts that had been safe GOP seats until their officeholders announced their retirements this year, thereby creating open seats that are more of a toss-up. In the Syracuse area, both parties were waiting to see if a longtime GOP stronghold could be upended by a public school teacher running with the deep financial support of the state's biggest teachers union; Republicans held onto that seat.

The Senate has been dominated by Republicans for the better part of 100 years. A brief, two-year takeover by the Democrats in 2009 was marked by chaos, a bloodless coup, infighting, big tax increases and big chunks of dysfunction. Democrats today bristle at the comparison to that period, saying most of the Senate Democratic membership joined after 2010 and that they will be far more disciplined that what was witnessed during those two years.

Senate Republicans went into the final weeks of the races with a number of disadvantages from two years ago, when the GOP last successfully held onto power despite a pitched battle between the parties.

First, they no longer had Cuomo providing cover for them. Cuomo did much to protect the GOP's Senate power base over the years, none more notably than in 2012 when he broke a campaign vow and let the Republicans draw the Senate district lines during the once-a-decade redistricting process. The GOP drew the lines to try to blunt the state's increasing march to the Democratic side, given witness by the ever-expanding enrollment of Democratic voters over Republicans.

Cuomo was served well by the Senate GOP. They gave in to him on a host of left-leaning issues, including marriage equality rights for gay people and one of the nation's strongest gun control laws. They also helped him draw a line between himself and Assembly Democrats, who would have moved far to the left of Cuomo, especially on fiscal policies.

Cuomo many times thanked Flanagan and his predecessor, the since-convicted Dean Skelos, for a host of major deals he struck with the Republicans over the past eight years.

That all changed after the state budget was wrapped up in April, when Cuomo, facing a Democratic Party primary from a challenger on the left, stepped up efforts to unify warring Democrats that had been split into two factions for much of his tenure as governor. Cuomo worked with the smaller of those factions, called the Independent Democratic Conference, which had a power-sharing deal with the GOP.

Since the spring, the IDC evaporated, and nearly all of its members won't be returning to Albany in January after suffering defeats during the September primaries at the hands of candidates far to the left of them.

One of the chief issues in the overall Senate races -- from upstate to the Hudson Valley -- became not a person but a place: New York City. Republican candidates sought to highlight with their constituents that a Senate Democratic takeover would firmly put lawmakers from New York City -- just by the numbers -- in control of the 63-member chamber.

"It's to upstate's detriment if New York City leadership is in control of all the branches of government," Sen. Patrick Gallivan, an Elma Republican, said recently.

But Democrats dismiss those worries.

"We are very, very clear that New York State is one state and that it is important that we grow the economy throughout the state ... I'm not entertaining pitting one part of New York against the other," Senate Minority Leader Andrea-Stewart Cousins, a Westchester Democrat, said in an interview last month.

___

(c)2018 The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.)

Visit The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.) at www.buffalonews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.