47.0°,
Fair Dunne appears to upset Thomas in S.D. 6
Otherwise, local incumbents win re-election
Election Day 2020 turned out to be a wild one.
As of midnight on Tuesday, tens of thousands of absentee ballots remained to be counted, making projecting winners in any number of races for Congress and the State Legislature tricky, if not impossible.
But local incumbents appeared to do well in their quest for re-election, unofficial results from the Nassau County Board of Elections show — except in the 6th Senate District, where Dennis Dunne Sr., a Republican from Levittown, appeared to defeat incumbent Sen. Kevin Thomas, a Democrat from Levittown, with 54 percent of the vote to Thomas’s 46 percent. Yet-to-be-counted absentee ballots, however, could alter the course of this race.
Thomas posted on Facebook on Nov. 4 that he believes the majority of these absentee ballots will be in his favor, and final results could take weeks. "I won my seat in 2018 by one of the closest margins in all of New York State," he wrote. "I knew I would be in for another tough fight this year. I remain optimistic and confident in the democratic process."
Meanwhile, State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Democrat representing the 9th District, was re-elected with 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent for his challenger, Victoria Johnson. He was one of only a handful of Democratic candidates that Nassau County Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs declared winners before midnight, including Sen. Anna Kaplan, who defeated challenger David Franklin with 52 percent of the vote to Franklin’s 48 percent. Kaplan said she was “extremely humbled that the people of Nassau County have placed their trust in me to be their senator for two more years.”
Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages also won re-election to the 22nd Assembly District with 66 percent of the vote to challenger Nicholas Zacchea’s 34, and Assemblyman Ed Ra secured another term in the 19th District, garnering 64 percent of the vote.
In the race for Congress, incumbent Kathleen Rice defeated challenger Douglas Tuman, 52 to 47, with one percent going to Green Party candidate Joseph Naham, and Rep. Gregory Meeks ran unopposed. The presidential election was still undecided as of press time.
