Astorino Re-Elected and Boykin Triumphs Over Flisser

After a fierce campaign County Executive Rob Astorino won a second term to lead Westchester, defeating New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson by a margin of 10%. With 81% of the vote reported, the Westchester County Board of Elections shows Astorino with 76,088 votes, leading Bramson by 55% to 45%. Despite the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans by a margin of two-to-one in the County, the Republican County Executive soundly defeated his Democratic opponent.

In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Astorino called for fiscal responsibility, an issue that resounded with voters who pay the highest county taxes in the country. He said, "The days of unrestricted tax and spend have to end. We are hemorrhaging jobs to other parts of the country. That will only stop when we get a grip on over spending and over taxing. We have reduced the county tax levy and added 27,000 jobs in the county. Westchester is open for business."

Conceding defeat, Bramson said, "I'm too old to cry, and it hurts too much to laugh ..... Running against a well-liked and well financed incumbent is a tough challenge." He told the group that he "will return to a job (he) love(s) ... serving the people of New Rochelle." He added, "The regret I feel is not for myself. I regret that I was not able to bring home a victory and make a difference for all of the people of our county. Our values do not rise and fall on one victory, or one defeat – they endure for every season and every debate."

The key issues in the campaign were taxes, the affordable housing settlement and to a lesser extent social issues such as gun control and abortion rights. With many questioning the role of county government, Astorino's ability to cut the size of the government and mandate county employees to contribute to their health care costs in his first term may have swayed voters to give him a second term. The Bramson campaign blamed Astorino for losing $7.4 miillion in HUD Community Block Development Grants as punishment for failing to comply with the terms of the Affordable Housing Settlement. Yet fears over federal challenges to local zoning code appear to have trumped concerns about the loss of federal funding.

Democrat Andy Spano, who held the job of Westchester County Executive for twelve years, from 1998 – 2010, widely expanded the scope of county government and perhaps voters feared that another Democrat would fund increases in social services resulting in even higher taxes.

In the race for County Legislator for District 5, White Plains Councilman Ben Boykin scored a big win over former Scarsdale Mayor Miriam Levitt-Flisser. Running on the Republican ticket, Flisser failed to benefit from County Executive Astorino's popularity and received only 39% of the 9,642 votes cast to Boykin's 5,846. A known quantity in White Plains, Boykin may have benefitted from voters in White Plains, who outnumber Scarsdale voters and cast approximately 8,534 total votes (as of Wednesday morning 11/5). Flisser may also have been one of the last victims of Hurricane Sandy as many in Scarsdale were unhappy after the storm left Scarsdale without power for up to 13 days and attributed some of their suffering at the time to the Mayor.

Following the good news, Boykin sent Scarsdale10583 the following: "I want to thank the voters of Scarsdale, White Plains and West Harrison for electing me to serve as your next County Legislator. This is our victory. We won because we focused on and discussed the issues that are important to residents of District 5. We have an outstanding team of supporters who worked to ensure our victory. I am excited to represent and work for each of you as your County Legislator."

Commenting on the election, Scarsdale's David Brodsky said, "Whether you were a supporter of Astorino, Bramson, Boykin or Flisser, you had to be impressed by the sophisticated ballot-splitting skills of the voters in our area of Southern Westchester. To have about 16% of the voters first choose Astorino, a Republican, and then go down the ballot and choose Boykin, a Democrat running against Republican Miriam Levitt-Flisser, is rare, indeed. What it means is probably too hard to discern yet without a detailed Scarsdale and White Plains vote breakdown but at the very least it reflects that Astorino was able to overcome the disadvantage of registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans, reflecting a bipartisan appeal that was hard to foresee."

The Scarsdale vote tally is not available as yet as the voting machines were impounded after the vote. According to Scarsdale Village Clerk Donna Conkling, "An Order was issued yesterday by the Honorable Lewis J. Lubell, Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Westchester, relating to the General Election for the office of Supreme Court Justice for the 9th Judicial District. The voting machines and ballots were impounded in Westchester County, as well as Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland and Orange Counties. The Westchester County BOE was not able to give me a breakdown of the votes cast for each candidate in Scarsdale as they had not yet received our voting machines back to their facility. Although you see that there is a tally on their website for the elections that were held, you will notice that they do not break down the numbers in each Town for County Executive, for example, but only the races for each Town or City's local elections."

When the Scarsdale numbers are released we will provide an analysis of how you voted.

What is your interpretation of the election results? Post your comments below.