Buffalo — Northern New York voters have appeared to elected a Democrat for the first since before the civil war. Bill Owens has a 5% lead over Conservative Doug Hoffman has conceded the race with 85% of the vote counted.
Voters rejected Hoffman, who does not live in the 23 New York Congressional district. Hoffman's campaign had received over $3 million dollars almost exclusively from outside the district. Hoffman also had the endorsements from the Cheney/Palin end of the Republican party.
The race was nasty as the ugliest of of the right extremist characters launched unfounded and vicious attacks on Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava for her moderate voting record. Scozzafava, who has voted to pass marriage equality in the New York State Assembly, suspended her campaign the weekend before Tuesday's election.
Bill Owens (D, WFP): – 59,715, 50.0%
Dede Scozzafava (R, I): – 6,287, 5.3%
Doug Hoffman (C): – 53,310, 44.7%
85% of the vote counted
In Maine the attempt to rollback marriage equality ballot proposition it is too close to all with the lead see sawing all night.
Maine #1 Yes (reject marriage equality)52.75%% No (affirm marriage) 47.25%. with 87% of the vote counted.
Jesse Connolly, Campaign Manager For No On 1 offered this statement
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The Catholic church led support of the repeal campaign. Catholic parishes passed special collections at Sunday mass to help the defeat marriage equality. The National Organization for Marriage, a group most observers expect is a front group for the Mormon church, also contributed heavily to the repeal campaign; it is under investigation by Maine’s ethics commission for possibly flouting state campaign finance laws by refusing to reveal its donors.
"We're in this for the long haul. For next week, and next month, and next year-- until all Maine families are treated equally. Because in the end, this has always been about love and family and that will always be something worth fighting for."
Meanwhile Maine did become 3rd State to License Medical Marijuana Providers. Maine voters approved the ballot measure 60% to 40%
Locally, Erie County Executive Christopher Collins was able to scheme his way to get several Republicans elected to county government but he was unable to replace Democratic Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz with his hand picked candidate. Poloncarz will again be guarding the County from deals and schemes of the County Executive.
Collins had engineered a series of moves in his effort to remove the Democratic veto proof majority in the Erie COunty Legislature. Collins moves include a Democratic incumbent resign late in the campaign so that she could accept a county position, recruited a two local television personalities who were successful in using their high name recognition to defeat the lesser known incumbents.
The Democratic heavy City of Buffalo turnout was at a historic low as Erie County Republican Party refused to challenge any city based races on the county or city level.
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Staff
