In a major victory for Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his party, a Democratic assemblyman won a stunning upset in a State Senate election on Tuesday in a district that has been in Republican hands for a century, Trymaine Lee reports.
The win reduces the Republicans’ majority to one seat and will intensify pressure on the majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, as he tries to maintain his party’s grip on the Senate, which it has controlled for more than 40 years.
Unofficial results showed that the Democrat, Darrel J. Aubertine, a dairy farmer, won 52 to 48 against the Republican, William A. Barclay, a lawyer and an assemblyman whose father once held the Senate seat and who had been favored to win. The special election was called after Senator James W. Wright, a Republican, announced his retirement from a the 48th district Senate seat, which covers Jefferson, Oswego and St. Lawrence Counties,
The New York Post adds that a Spitzer-backed plan is in place to woo some Republican senators to the Democratic side before the November elections in an effort to take control of the Senate.
The New York Sun adds that the election may put Mr. Bruno’s standing as majority leader in jeopardy by raising concerns among his colleagues, some of whom have long wanted his job, about his ability to carry the Republicans past the November elections.
Some felt that the fierce, media-intense campaign unfairly characterized as an icy backwoods backwater. But Bob Gorman, the managing editor of The Watertown Daily, pointed out that the district has been home to three secretaries of state, the creator of the Dewey Decimal System, the founder of the Woolworth’s stores and the actors Kirk Douglas and Viggo Mortensen.
