Singas handily wins primary

Defeats challenger 73-27; will face Murray in November

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Acting District Attorney Madeline Singas defeated her challenger Michael Scotto in the Democratic primary on Thursday.

According to the unofficial results, Singas, who is backed by the Democratic Party, earned 8,089 votes (73 percent), while Scotto earned 3,008 (27 percent).

“Tonight, we took a huge step towards making sure Nassau continues to be one of the safest counties in America,” Singas said in a release. “It’s a step towards continuing Kathleen Rice’s legacy of aggressive and tough prosecution and a step towards ending public corruption, fighting the scourge of heroin and cracking down on the violent criminals who threaten our communities. Most importantly, we took a step towards making sure Nassau has a lifelong prosecutor, not a career politician, as district attorney.”

Singas has been acting district attorney since January, when she was nominated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to replace Kathleen Rice, who was elected to the House of Representatives. Singas had served as Rice’s chief assistant since 2011.

Scotto, a career prosecutor, was always the underdog in the race. Now a sole practitioner of law, he had served for more than 20 years as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. He was critical of Singas’s experience, and often spoke of problems in the DA’s office. Still, it was not enough to win him the support of county Democrats.

Voter turnout was low — only 11,118 ballots were cast in the race, out of more than 300,000 Democrats in the county.

With the primary behind her, Singas will now go on to challenge Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray for the district attorney seat in the general election on Nov. 3.