{"id":38595,"date":"2025-11-05T04:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T04:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/38595\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T04:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T04:19:09","slug":"early-results-see-strong-democratic-showing-among-county-lawmaker-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/38595\/","title":{"rendered":"Early results see strong Democratic showing among county lawmaker races"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early returns appeared to show Democrats were picking up a seat on the Suffolk County Legislature Tuesday\u00a0and one on the Nassau County Legislature.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With virtually all precincts reporting late Tuesday, Democrat Greg Doroski in Suffolk’s 1st District was in\u00a0the lead for a North Fork seat held by Republican Legis. Catherine L. Stark, and Democrat Craig G. Herskowitz appeared to hold a lead in the 18th District over Republican incumbent Stephanie L. Bontempi.<\/p>\n

Suffolk Democratic chairman Richard Schaffer said the results showed: \u201cIn Suffolk County, when we get knocked down, we get right back up and we\u2019re ready to fight.”<\/p>\n

In the 10th District in Suffolk, Republican Legis. Trish Bergin held a lead over Democratic challenger Leigh-Ann M. Barde, according to early results at the Suffolk Board of Elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republicans\u00a0were hoping to retain or expand their\u00a012-6 supermajority in the Suffolk Legislature. But if preliminary results hold, the new composition would be 11 Republicans and seven Democrats, breaking the GOP’s supermajority.<\/p>\n

There will be at least three new faces in the Nassau County Legislature, and\u00a0two\u00a0in the Suffolk Legislature\u00a0when Long Island’s county lawmakers reconvene in January. If early returns hold, Nassau’s legislature will be 11 Republicans and 8 Democrats.<\/p>\n

Term limits were\u00a0forcing out two\u00a0prominent\u00a0incumbents in Suffolk, Presiding Officer\u00a0Kevin J. McCaffrey (R-Lindenhurst) and Legis. Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga).<\/p>\n

Three Nassau seats became open because of court-ordered redistricting and the decisions of Democrat Seth Koslow and Republican\u00a0John R. Ferretti Jr. to seek other offices.<\/p>\n

The Nassau races this year were highlighted by a residency dispute involving a candidate in\u00a0one district, and another race featuring a candidate who was reported missing months ago.<\/p>\n

The missing candidate, Democrat Petros Krommidas, had been seeking a 4th District seat held by Republican Patrick Mullaney. But Krommidas, 29, of Baldwin, has not been seen since April when he was reported missing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mullaney appeared to be leading in early tallies Tuesday, according to the Nassau elections website.<\/p>\n

In Nassau’s 16th District, Republican challenger Jennifer Gallub-Pravato claimed to live<\/a>\u00a0in a\u00a0Village of Farmingdale walk-up apartment above a Mexican restaurant and barbershop on Main Street, though her husband,\u00a0Town of Oyster Bay Receiver of Taxes Jeff Pravato, is registered to vote in the 19th Legislative District, listing on voter rolls the address to the couple’s $1.1 million, five-bedroom house in Massapequa Park.<\/p>\n

Gallub-Pravato’s opponent, Legis.\u00a0Arnold Drucker (D-Plainview) asked\u00a0Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the matter<\/a>. No ruling from the attorney general was released before Election Day.<\/p>\n

Drucker appeared to be leading Tuesday, according to unofficial results reported by Nassau.<\/p>\n

Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia said Suffolk Republican headquarters in Patchogue he was \u201ccautiously optimistic\u201d Republicans could maintain the party’s 12-6 supermajority.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged it\u2019s a \u201ctough\u201d year without a marquee countywide race at the top of the ticket. Suffolk voters, he said, have already helped elected Republicans in the federal government in the races that generate bigger headlines.<\/p>\n

In Nassau, resignations and a court-ordered redistricting<\/a>\u00a0created\u00a0open seats in the 2nd,\u00a014th and 15th legislative districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the 14th District, Cynthia Nunez, who is not registered with a party but is running on the Democratic line, appeared to be leading\u00a0Republican Sheharyar Ali. The winner will replace\u00a0Republican Legis. C. William Gaylor III of Lynbrook, who did\u00a0not seek\u00a0reelection.<\/p>\n

In the 15th District, Republican Kayla L. Knight appeared to be leading\u00a0Democrat Stephen Richard Hellman, who did not actively campaign. The seat has been vacant since August when\u00a0Ferretti Jr. quit to become Hempstead\u00a0Town supervisor.<\/p>\n

In Suffolk,\u00a0Republican RJ Renna ran uncontested for McCaffrey’s District 14 seat.<\/p>\n

In Suffolk’s\u00a013th District, Democrat Shala Pascucci faced Republican Salvatore Formica. The winner will succeed Trotta.<\/p>\n

Newsday’s Joe Werkmeister contributed to this story.<\/p>\n

\"Carl<\/p>\n

\n\tCarl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early returns appeared to show Democrats were picking up a seat on the Suffolk County Legislature Tuesday\u00a0and one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[26567,131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-38595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-local-elections","9":"tag-long-beach","10":"tag-long-beach-headlines","11":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}