Absentee Ballots To Determine Democratic Nominee

More than 1,700 absentee ballots will determine which Democratic candidate will run against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin in November, former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst or the former head of the Suffolk County Planning Commission Dave Calone.

After the polls closed on Tuesday, and after all of the votes were counted, Throne-Holst was ahead of her opponent by only 29 votes. The unofficial returns showed Throne-Holst had 5446 votes and Calone had 5417 votes.

“We knew it was going to be close, but 29 votes is a very close election. But we’re confident about the results again,” said Andrew Grunwald, the campaign manager for the Throne-Holst campaign.

Both campaigns consider the close election a testament to their campaign efforts.

In an email the Throne-Holst campaign sent out to supporters, she said, “We hold a 29 vote lead over our opponent despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative advertising spent against us.”

The Calone campaign, however, considers the narrow margin a tie. In an email he sent to his supporters, he said, “While we won’t know the final results until the roughly 1700 are counted next week, the current 29 vote margin represents a victory of the volunteer grassroots. We do not have Wall Street fundraisers, and we did not have Wall Street fundraisers, and we did not have $720,000 of SuperPAC funding poured in for us in the last three weeks - but here we are in a virtual tie.”

Even without Wall Street funding, the race was the most expensive Long Island primary. Both campaigns spent $1 million to oust Congressman Lee Zeldin, who used the close election to hinder Democrats’ efforts to win back his seat in Congress.

“For all of my great volunteers and other supporters hoping that the Democrats were going to get their act together today and pick an opponent for us today I have really bad news. In a historically low and embarrassing voter turnout, the Democratic candidates against us are now separated by 29 votes with 1,600 absentee ballots remaining,” Zeldin’s campaign posted on Facebook.

Despite only 9.22 percent of the active Democrats in New York’s 1st Congressional District turning out to vote on June 28, both campaigns believe the absentee ballots will lead them to victory. In fact, Newsday reported that the Throne-Holst campaign told supporters who have houses in Manhattan that they could change their voter registration to Suffolk County and request an absentee ballot.

“Absentees tend to go the way things go at the polls, so we are looking at a victory and we are looking at another victory in November,” said Throne-Holst at her election night watch party.

The Calone campaign, however, is not giving up.

“I’m confident that voters who chose to vote absentee wanted to nominate the best candidate to defeat Lee Zeldin in November. And I’m confident that was Dave Calone,” said Rahul Kale, the campaign manager for the Calone campaign.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections will begin counting the 1,725 absentee ballots and any other absentee ballots it receives that were postmarked before June 27 on Thursday, July 7. The process is expected to take several days.