Incumbent candidates in the Capital Region saw success in races for the New York state legislature Tuesday.
The Republican watch party in downtown Saratoga Springs was buzzing with energy as election night results came in.
Longtime State Senator Jim Tedisco defended his 44th district seat from Democratic challenger Minita Sanghvi, a Saratoga Springs city councilor.
Tedisco won with about 56 percent of the vote.
Tedisco declined to comment Tuesday. In a statement Wednesday he said he is “proud that I ran a positive campaign about facts and not attacks because that always trumps mudslinging, name calling and personal attacks.”
Wednesday morning, Sanghvi said she knew the race would be tough. Tedisco was first elected to the state Assembly in 1982 and had previously represented the 49th district before redistricting in 2022.
“I think that we ran a campaign that was based on facts and talked to people about his votes. We talked to people about my vision. But, at the end of the day it seems like nationally as well as locally, the people have chosen a different path. You know, progress was clearly not on the agenda yesterday,” said Sangvhi.
Sanghvi campaigned in support of Prop One, or the Equal Rights Amendment. The measure enshrines protections against state discrimination based on a number of factors including race, sex, abortion outcome, and more. Voters approved it with more than 56 percent in support.
“I have been supporting the ERA the whole time while my opponent called it the elimination of parent’s rights. So, I am really glad that we’ve got some good news coming out on the ERA front,” said Sanghvi.
In the Assembly, Republican Mary Beth Walsh defended the 112th District seat against Democratic activist Joe Seeman.
“What I heard a lot from people was really talking about affordability, public safety, things like that. I tried to really drive home the point that as a member of the minority party, it’s important to have a strong voice to really speak out against budgets that are just getting so big and some of the misplaced priorities that I’ve been seeing over the last eight years I’ve been in office. So, those things kind of really resonated I think," said Walsh.
Walsh, who secured 56.6% of the vote, opposes Prop One.
“I’m a little disappointed because I think that the wording of it is really vague and I think that anytime you add anything to the New York state constitution it should be something clear enough where we can understand it. I just think that we’re going to have a lot of litigation that’s going to follow and try to figure out exactly what it does mean and what it doesn’t mean. I think we could have done a much better job wording it appropriately. But, if it’s the will of the voters that it’s going to be, then we’ll have to see how it all shakes out in the courts,” said Walsh.
Seeman, who ran for the 112th district seat in 2020, saw the amendment’s approval as a positive note for the night.
“We stood against the fear mongering, we spoke the truth, we stood with our values including equal rights for all, including democracy and listening to the people,” said Seeman.
Democrat Carrie Woerner of the 113th district defended her seat against Republican Jeremy Messina.
Woerner, who has held the office for a decade, won with about 53 percent of the vote. Her campaign focused on creating affordable homeownership options in upstate and increasing access to healthcare in rural communities.
She says she has her priorities straight for the next session.
"I will continue to work on the issue of access to dental care in areas where there is a shortage. I will continue to advocate for nursing home and long-term care for our seniors. I'm going to continue to advocate for healthcare workers and hoping to pass some common sense legislation to really ease the problem that our healthcare workers in the hospitals are having with assaults on healthcare staff," said Woerner.
Republican JoAnn Kupferman won her bid for reelection as the Saratoga County Treasurer. She was challenged by Saratoga Springs Supervisor Michelle Madigan.