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Primary Win Could Help GOP Rule N.Y. State Senate

Mike Groll
Fred Stevens fills out his ballot while voting at the Sportsmen's Club of Clifton Park on Tuesday in N.Y. Two Republican primaries were held in the district for candidates running for seats in the state Senate and Assembly.

A win by a candidate in a four-way primary for a state Senate seat Tuesday night may help Republicans keep control of the Senate in the long run.

Marisol Alcantara won the Upper Manhattan seat held by Adriano Espaillat, who is running for Congress. Alcantara is a Democrat, but she has said if she’s elected to the Senate in November, she won’t join the regular Democrats but will likely ally with the breakaway Democratic faction known as the Independent Democratic Conference. The breakaway Democrats have in the past formed a coalition government with the Republicans, and they have not ruled out doing that again in 2017.

Bob Bellafiore, with the group New Yorkers for Independent Action, says it’s a win for maintaining the current balance of power in Albany.

“For the regular Democrats to take control of the state Senate, it would have to be a massive, wholesale Watergate-like sweep away of the Republicans,” Bellafiore said. “Which I don’t think anybody expects in 2016.”

The independent expenditure group supports school choice for low-income children by offering them scholarships to leave their designated school district for private or parochial schools.  The Independent Democrats have backed that idea in the past, and have received campaign money from pro-school choice donors.

Karen has covered state government and politics for New York State Public Radio, a network of 10 New York and Connecticut stations, since 1990. She is also a regular contributor to the statewide public television program about New York State government, New York Now. She appears on the reporter’s roundtable segment, and interviews newsmakers.