ONE VOTE AT A TIME — Sam Burns, and a voter put up campaign signs in Region 7.
Voters agreed with PEF in 94 percent of races
By SHERRY HALBROOK
Of the 233 political endorsements PEF made in New York state and national campaigns this year, 94 percent of the candidates came out on top in the November 2 balloting.
According to preliminary election results, 218 of the PEF-endorsed candidates won their elections, 13 lost, one withdrew and the remaining race is still too close to call.
“We won 10 of the 18 state legislative and congressional races that we had given top priority because we knew they might be very close,” said PEF President Roger Benson, “and one of the remaining eight is still undecided. Several of these races were quite close and I am certain PEF’s involvement made a difference.”
National offices
PEF suffered a serious disappointment at the top of the ballot with the re-election of President George W. Bush and V.P. Dick Cheney over Democratic challengers John Kerry and John Edwards. But the PEF-endorsed incumbent for U.S. Senate, Democrat Chuck Schumer, won his race handily.
PEF made endorsements in 26 of the 29 New York congressional races, backing 22 Democrats and four Republicans.
Only two of the congressional candidates that PEF endorsed lost their races. Democrats Frank Barbaro and Jack Davis lost to incumbent Republicans in the 13th and 26th districts.
NYS Senate PEF endorsed a total of 25 Democrats and 37 Republicans for the state Senate.
The race that is still too close to call involves incumbent Republican state Sen. Nick Spano of Yonkers in the 35th District.
Just one of the other 60 state senatorial candidates endorsed by PEF lost. That was New York City Republican Olga Mendez, the incumbent in the 28th S.D.
Region 9 member Dick Collins, talks with Pennsylvania voter Carl
Crinella. Photo by Sherry Halbrook
NYS Assembly
PEF endorsed candidates in 143 of the 150 state Assembly races — 107 Democrats, 35 Republicans and one Independence Party candidate.
Of these, 94 percent (134) of the endorsed candidates prevailed at the polls.
However, the nine losses really boil down to just eight, because one of the endorsed candidates who was running unopposed dropped out of the race later and was replaced on the ballot. That was incumbent Democrat Alexander Gromack of Rockland County in the 94th A.D. who resigned late in the campaign and was replaced on the ballot by Democrat Kenneth
Zembrowski.
The eight losing Assembly candidates endorsed by PEF include seven Democrats — incumbents David Sidikman and Barry Grodenchik and challengers PEF member Kevin Neary, Mary Ellen Polimeni, James Hare, Dennis Tracey and Bonnie Kraham — and Independence Party candidate Robert Straniere, an incumbent in the 62nd A.D.
Although the roster of defeated Assembly challengers includes a PEF member, the roster of Assembly challengers who won includes former PEF member Robert Reilly, a Democrat. who upset incumbent Robert Prentiss in the 109th A.D.
The
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