On Long Island, a Senate race with implications stretching to WNY

Nov. 04--SAYVILLE -- On Gillette Avenue in this South Shore hamlet of Long Island, Republican Dean Murray was hunting for votes, darting back and forth across the tree-lined street to knock on doors late one recent afternoon.

Democratic households, identified via paperwork providing voter information, were avoided. Republican and Conservative Party voters were his targets for his State Senate campaign.

"Thank you," he told one supportive couple, whose small, black dog kept jumping on Murray during his pitch.

Down the street, another score. "I'm going to vote for you," said one woman opening the door before Murray even spoke. She offered -- with a straight face -- to knock down lawn campaign signs of Murray's opponent, Democrat Monica Martinez.

"Just tell your family and friends to support me," Murray told her instead.

The Senate race between Murray and Martinez in the Third District is nearly as far away from Buffalo and other upstate areas as it gets in New York State.

Yet, with no real Senate contests underway in Western New York, there are no more important set of races that could affect generations of upstate and downstate residents than the Senate's Third District race and several other contests here on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley.

What happens here Tuesday will help determine whether Republicans lose their five-generation grip on Senate power. If they do, Democrats are ready to act on long-stalled ideas, like more education funding to urban school districts, expanded abortion rights, stronger gun control laws, immigrant protections, major election law changes and a slew of left-leaning measures.

Issues aside, a Senate partisan flip will coalesce power in the executive and legislative branches firmly in the hands of Democrats, mostly from New York City or nearby addresses. With the GOP currently holding a one-seat conference margin, the Senate's Third District has come into view.

"If you care about balance in state government, if you care about the way of life in upstate, you should care about what happens in every single district on Long Island because any of those races has the potential to change a balanced government," said Sen. Patrick Gallivan, an Elma Republican.

"Depending on what kind of night we have, this could be the decisive race" for control of the Senate, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, a Democrat, said of the Senate's Third District.

A race suddenly in play

A few weeks ago, political attention focused on spirited contests in Nassau County, Hudson Valley and the Syracuse area.

But things change quickly in a complicated political year like 2018. Over the past two weeks or so, the Third District race has come alive. Big money is rushing in. Outside help is coming. The two candidates suddenly have money -- or other people spending money on their behalf -- for a flurry of TV ads.

A key reason? The district, with a Democratic enrollment edge, is an open-seat race. Its current occupant, the GOP's Tom Croci, surprised Albany by abruptly leaving to rejoin the U.S. Navy.

"The momentum has definitely grown. This was a race that, yes, was completely under the radar," said Martinez, 41, single and a former public school teacher who was elected to the Suffolk County Legislature in 2013. She spoke last Wednesday ahead of a vote-trolling session at a senior center, located in a decidedly more modest community than the one where Murray took a reporter the day before.

Now, with recent big financial backing from Senate Democrats, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Super PACs, Martinez is said to have a serious chance of winning a once-ironclad GOP seat.

"It's not thrilling to see all that money spent against you, but it's certainly not a shock ... We knew this was coming," said Murray, 54, who owns an ad agency.

The two campaigns report spending a total of $631,000 the last several months. But that's a snapshot only up until Oct. 22 -- the last day the campaigns had to publicly disclose spending activities.

Since that date, money has been flooding in, according to state filings that track large donations and Super PAC spending on a daily basis.

On Oct. 23, the main Senate Democratic campaign committee tossed $170,000 to Martinez, and on Friday sent her $70,000. The state Democratic Party has allocated $143,000 on her behalf, and Cuomo helped her raise money. Also spending on her behalf -- more than $275,000 since Oct. 23 -- are several Super PACs, including several big unions like the New York State United Teachers, a D.C.-based Democratic group and a PAC funded by Airbnb, which put $50,000 into her effort.

Also on Oct. 23, the main Senate GOP committee gave Murray $200,000. Another $39,000 came last Friday. That was on top of the $350,000 it sent him via three separate wire transfers a couple of weeks earlier; the GOP has also spent at least $186,000 on his behalf.

A diverse district chooses

The district's diversity is told in the two hamlets where a reporter caught up with Murray and Martinez.

Sayville has 17,000 residents, is 95 percent white and has 3.7 percent living in poverty, census figures show. Its median house value is $432,000 and median household income is $103,000. A modest, 1,861 square foot home in the neighborhood Murray was touring is on the market for $485,000 with an $11,000 annual property tax tab.

Brentwood has 61,000 people, is 16 percent African-American. Sixty-five percent are identified as Hispanic or Latino. Its median home value is $281,000, and median income is $65,000, with a 12.4 percent poverty rate. Martinez, who immigrated from El Salvador at age 3, went to high school in Brentwood. The community has been among those hit hardest by MS-13 gang violence.

The Third District had been a GOP hotbed for decades. No longer. Today, there are 9,200 more Democrats than Republicans.

Long Island has seen its partisan numbers morph sharply. Not long ago, all nine Long Island Senate seats were held by the GOP. Today, it's down to seven and Democrats are threatening in at least three races on Tuesday.

In Suffolk County, which contains the Third District, there are 325,000 Democrats and 313,000 registered Republicans. That's a gain of 100,000 more Democrats and loss of 25,000 Republicans since 1998, state records show. President Trump won the county 52 percent to 45 percent over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Cuomo very narrowly lost here in his 2014 re-election bid.

There was a sizable dose of irony in where Martinez chose to meet: the Caesar Trunzo Senior Center in Brentwood. Trunzo was a longtime Republican senator of the Third District. Trunzo lost to a Democrat in 2008, the first Senate Democrat from Suffolk County since 1902; the GOP quickly took back the seat in 2010.

At the senior center last week, Martinez stopped by a table of 10 African-American women. The first question: "What are you going to do about Trump?" After the third, about a parking lot concern, Martinez wrapped up asking them: "OK, anyone need a ride to the polls next week?"

Martinez worked another room. Eight tables of people -- whites, Latinos, Asians, blacks -- were there, some to see her, others to eat and socialize. She got some hugs. "I saw you on TV," one said to her. Martinez saw a man shooting pool in a back room and joined him. She missed every shot she took.

Sharply different candidates

Martinez and Murray are worlds apart on fiscal and social issues. For instance, she wants more gun control laws; he opposes the SAFE Act. She wants broader protections for immigrants; he opposes sanctuary cities and public financial aid for children of illegal immigrants. And on and on.

Martinez has gotten Cuomo's help, though she wants to undo one Cuomo policy: a law that weakened the ability of the state comptroller to pre-audit certain economic development contracts, such as those at the heart of the bid-rigging case involving the Buffalo Billion.

New York City, too, is a wedge issue here. Murray is a state assemblyman. He says New York City Democrats will unfairly control Albany if the Senate flips. With the GOP gone from all power, a firewall that has blocked controversial Democratic ideas will come down. "New York City interests will be the basis for every policy pushed through," he says, a mantra repeated to homeowners on his tour.

Martinez dismissed what she called a scare tactic. "Long Island has been my home, so when they throw that rhetoric about New York City it's just because they have nothing else to go on," she said.

Each used the same term -- "same old playbook" -- to describe tactics of the other. He says Martinez forces portray him as anti-women and blindly pro-gun. She says Murray is trying to tag her with a dysfunctional period in 2009 and 2010 when Democrats briefly ran the Senate; she notes she was teaching school at the time and not even involved in politics.

Often on Long Island, the Democrats have been accused, for partisan détente reasons, of putting up less than aggressive candidates to challenge Republicans. "That's a fair statement, no question," said Bellone, the Democratic county executive. The Suffolk party was taking a similar route this year with the Senate's Third District. But Bellone, who recruited Martinez to politics, and others pushed for her to run instead, and now Democrats feel they have a real shot against Murray.

"I'm feeling good," Murray said when asked about his chances.

Now, the Senate's Third District will be closely followed by both sides on Election Night.

"It's a typical Suffolk County swing district. It's got some hard elements on the right and left, and a lot of voters in the middle who are not strictly party people but will go with who they think will do the best job for the district," Bellone said.

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