Three-term Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy beat City Council President Marion Porterfield in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
McCarthy, first elected in 2011, led Porterfield, who has spent 12 years on the city council, for much of the night, unofficially finishing the race with about 55 percent of the vote — 1,457 to Porterfield's 1,190.
“We ran a very aggressive campaign, went back to the old school, knocked on every door," said McCarthy. "We were aggressive in our direct mail, our messaging, and our ‘get out the vote efforts’ and it paid off tonight. And so that I'm very happy to be, again, the nominee of the Democratic Party, and looking forward to the opportunity to continue to serve as Schenectady’s mayor for the next four years.”
McCarthy gave a nod to Governor Kathy Hochul for her 11th hour endorsement, in which she said "Schenectady’s best days still lie ahead."
"I had the opportunity to talk to her yesterday to thank her for that. She again said how she likes to come to Schenectady. She likes to work with Schenectady. She wants her team to be part of our team. And those are the things that produce real projects. It's real growth. It's a city that we're all proud of,” McCarthy said.
During a June 2nd debate, Porterfield said as mayor she would seek more public input from residents to chart a path forward. McCarthy promoted himself as a person who has helped transform the Electric City, and a leader who has cut taxes six times. On his professional relationship with Porterfield:
“The problem has been the City Council has to understand their role as a policymaking body," McCarthy said. "And they also have to make decisions. You can't spin your wheels, kind of coming around looking for 100% consensus on some issues, you have to move forward. And you know Rivers Casino was one of those things where we moved forward. She didn't vote for that. There are other things that are in the pipeline where I want to work with the council. I want to work with our friends in the county legislature, the state government again to build on the record that we have and projected image and other communities to look to, to see how things are done here in the city of Schenectady.”
Porterfield was unavailable for comment. She was tied 26-26 with Edward Varno in the Working Families primary for mayor. McCarthy will face Republican Matt Nelligan in the November election.
Nelligan said "McCarthy used the power of incumbency, especially as it relates to large campaign donations from developers and people who do business with the city to overwhelm Porterfield and frankly, I think that Porterfield ran a poor race where she didn't highlight McCarthy's negative record, and that's what we saw last night. In the fall. I'll be highlighting the entire negative record of McCarthy which is extensive, and I'll have the money to fight back."
