In a very important special election in New York Tuesday night, Democratic Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky looks to have defeated Republican attorney Chris McGrath in the race to replace former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican who was automatically expelled after his conviction on corruption charges last year. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Kaminsky led by 780 votes, a margin of 50 percent to 48.8 percent, prompting him to declare victory on election night. According to election officials, there are still some 2,700 absentee ballots left to count, but more were cast by registered Democrats than Republicans, and it's extremely unlikely that they could alter the outcome.
While the 9th District voted for Barack Obama by a 54-46 margin, Nassau County has long been a Republican stronghold downballot—in fact, Kaminsky would become the only Democratic state senator on all of Long Island—and a late poll from Siena College showed McGrath with an 8-point lead. What's more, the competitive GOP presidential primary had generally boosted Republican turnout in earlier states, so Democrats had reasons to fret. However, more Democrats than Republicans wound up turning out to vote in the primary in Nassau, which may have boosted Kaminsky's fortunes.
With this apparent victory, there will now nominally be 32 Democrats in the state Senate, versus 31 Republicans. However, the GOP will retain control of the chamber thanks to five turncoat Democrats who are members of the so-called Independent Democratic Conference that operates in a coalition with the Republicans. But even if the IDC were to return to the fold, a sixth renegade Democrat, Simcha Felder, outright caucuses with the GOP and had previously said that wouldn't change even if Kaminsky won.
Still, the likely pickup here speaks well to Democrats' chances of making further gains in the Senate this fall, when the presidential election should juice Democratic turnout. Democrats would still need six more seats to render the IDC and Felder irrelevant, a task made very difficult by the absurd GOP gerrymander that's the only thing keeping Republicans in power. But a few more Republican losses might nevertheless cause the IDC to reconsider, and finally restore the Democratic majority that New York, a deep blue state, wants and deserves.