Becker, Kopel re-elected to County Legislature
Murray and other town incumbents win easily
Unofficial results on Election Night gave victories to local incumbent Republicans Fran Becker and Howard Kopel in the 6th and 7th county Legislative District.
Becker had nearly 70 percent, 6,905 votes against Democratic challenger Anthony Gonzalez, who garnered 3,035 votes.
In the 7th district, Kopel, who received 6,312 votes, led his challenger, Democrat Adam Moser, with 57 percent of the vote. Moser took 4,347 votes.
“I’m glad that the people were able to see through the nastiness and disinformation,” said Kopel, who described the campaign as “ugly” and added that it was full of “lies and half-truths.” He said he looked forward to continuing to work for his constituents on improving the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant, completing the Nassau Expressway to improve emergency evacuation routes and reducing traffic on Rockaway Turnpike.
With other key races too close to call as of midnight Tuesday, it was too early to tell whether the GOP would retain its majority in the Legislature.
In a major upset, Republican incumbent John Ciotti lost to Democrat Carrie Solages in the 3rd L.D. The results were at least in part due to a YouTube video of a Ciotti campaign worker making racial comments while hanging signs for his candidate in front of the Solages campaign headquarters in Elmont.
“I would be naïve to say that the video didn’t play a role,” Solages said, “but I didn’t sign up for that, I signed up to run an effective campaign. We put our entire effort into the campaign,” he added. “We showed the public these career politicians aren’t here for us. We have a choice for something, a fresh perspective.”
With less than 50 percent of the election districts’ results posted on the county Board of Election website, Solages had 52 percent of the vote. Republicans conceded the 3rd L.D. race before midnight.
