Nassau D.A. Madeline Singas to face GOP challenger from Long Beach

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Four years after she defeated former Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray in a heated race for Nassau County district attorney, Madeline Singas is seeking re-election to another four-year term.

She will face Republican challenger Francis McQuade, an attorney from Long Beach, in November. McQuade said the Nassau County Republican Party nominated him for county district attorney on Friday.

“The people are so deserving of choice,” McQuade, who previously ran for the Nassau County Legislature and New York State Assembly, said in a news release. “My candidacy will give them a compelling choice.”

McQuade, an attorney with 24 years of experience who is active in the Long Beach community, said he boasts a long record of civic, charitable and political activity across Long Island. A Brooklyn native and Long Beach resident since 1990, McQuade ran unsuccessfully for the Nassau County Legislature in its inaugural race in 1995, and was the Republican candidate for the New York State Assembly’s 20th District in 2006.

Most recently, he represented members of the Beach to Bay Civic Association, a group that filed a lawsuit filed against the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2016 seeking to block the release of $154 million in FEMA funds — originally earmarked for Long Beach Medical Center after Hurricane Sandy — to South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside.

“I will be waging a campaign of ideas,” McQuade said of the race against Singas. “Many of my political ideas and philosophies of civil liberty are different from my opponent, and I hope that those differences will be shown clearly in the course of the campaign. I intend a campaign that is lively and respectful, as one would expect of a district attorney.”

Singas kicked off her reelection campaign in January with $962,702 on hand, according to a news release. She received the Democratic Party’s nomination at its convention last month.

Singas, who grew up in Astoria, was appointed chief assistant district attorney in 2011 and acting district attorney in 2015, replacing U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice. In November 2015, Singas easily defeated Murray, a Republican, in a bitterly contested election for county district attorney.

Singas has pledged to run for re-election on her record of accomplishments, including a “record-low” crime rate in Nassau County, “major” take downs of MS-13, prosecuting corrupt public officials regardless of their party and enacting an “all-in” approach to fighting the heroin epidemic — including enforcement, treatment and education.

“Four years ago, I campaigned on a simple premise: that the Nassau D.A. should be an experienced prosecutor, not a politician,” Singas said in a statement. “We’ve taken on government corruption, MS-13, and the heroin epidemic, and crime in Nassau County has fallen to historic lows. I am grateful to our law enforcement partners who have helped keep our community one of the safest large counties in America, and to all those who have supported my campaign.”