Primary Day Odds & Ends

Though the focus was on the mayoral primaries on Tuesday night, there were a few other notable primaries in Onondaga County. The Clay-based 2nd Legislative District had a Republican primary with some similarities to the Republican mayoral primary, with one major difference. Clay Republicans selected John Dougherty (pictured at left) to represent them, but County Executive Joanie Mahoney backed a challenger. In the city, that challenger (to party designee Otis Jennings) was Steve Kimatian, who also has the Independence line, and in Clay, that challenger was David Stewart, who also has the Independence and Conservative lines. The major difference between the two races was that in the city, Joanie-backed Steve Kimatian won by a 12 point margin. In Clay, Joanie-backed David Stewart was massacred at the ballot box and lost by a whopping 73 point margin.

Another race for the County Legislature of some interest was the opportunity-to-ballot (OTB) race for the Conservative Party line in the 9th District, anchored by Eastwood and the Village of East Syracuse. The Conservative Party endorsed 28-year incumbent Democrat Floor Leader Mark Stanczyk (pictured at right), but Republican challenger Mike Sutton collected OTB petitions to force what is basically a write-in primary. Stanczyk’s name appeared on the ballot on Primary Day, but Sutton’s supporters had to write in his name in order to cast their vote for him. The outcome of the vote was a 10-10 tie. If there are any absentee ballots, they won’t be opened until at least next week. If the tie stands, Stanczyk gets to keep the line. A Sutton win would give him three lines (R, I, and C). Stanczyk will only be appearing on the Democrat line. He was endorsed by the Working Families Party, but because he can only have a maximum of three lines, he declined the Working Families line in order to maintain the Conservative line. (CORRECTION: I'd like to thank the anonymous commenter who corrected my misunderstanding of the number of lines a candidate can have: "A candidate can have as many party lines as there are parties with automatic ballot status. The only limitation for ballot lines is that if you have 2 lines you cannot create a 3rd through an independent nominating petition, that line must be merged with another. Unless of course it is a state legislative race, in which case you can have unlimited lines.") What makes this race more complicated is the fact that Mike Sutton was on the Jim Reith show on Wednesday alleging that some of his Conservative supporters may have been turned away at the polls. If Mr. Sutton can wrestle the Conservative line away from Stanczyk, it will be a MAJOR upset. This is a race to watch until the end.

In the Salina-based 4th Legislative District, incumbent Democrat Dave Stott and Republican challenger Judy Tassone (pictured at left) waged write-in campaigns for the Conservative line after neither candidate received the endorsement of the Conservative Party. Judy Tassone came out ahead, 18 votes to Stott’s 11. Any absentee ballots won’t be opened until at least next week, but they are not likely to alter the results from Primary Day.

There was a similar situation in Syracuse’s 3rd Common Council District. Incumbent Republican Ryan McMahon and Democrat Dorothy Matthews battled for the Conservative line with dueling write-in campaigns. After voting was over on Primary Day, Dorothy Matthews was ahead 2 votes to 1. Ryan McMahon already has three lines: Republican, Independence and Working Families; so if he wins he would likely turn down the Conservative line, leaving it blank, but denying it to his opponent. Again, if there are any absentee ballots for this race, they won’t be opened until at least next week.