by David Flint
Tea Party supporter Carl Paladino won big in the Republican Primary in the Eastwick area as well as throughout New York State and Rensselaer County. The multimillionaire developer from Buffalo defeated former Representative Rick Lazio with about 62% of the vote statewide. He did better upstate taking 79% of the vote in Rensselaer County and 80% in the towns of Hoosick, Grafton, Petersburgh, Berlin and Stephentown.
Paladino’s choice for Lieutenant Governor, Thomas Ognibene, did not do as well statewide, losing narrowly to Gregory Edwards, but he won easily in Rensselaer County and in the Eastwick towns with about 58% of the vote.
Paladino also endorsed Gary Berntsen as the candidate for the US Senate to challenge Chuck Schumer in November, but the former CIA Officer was easily defeated by Jay Townsend, a communications consultant from Cornwall-on-Hudson in Orange County who ran on lower taxes and repealing the health care bill. Both Berntsen and Townsend claimed Tea Party support. Townsend took about 60% of the vote in Rensselaer County and in the Eastwick towns
Joseph DioGuardi, former Congressman from Westchester County who bucked the Republican Party insiders and petitioned his way to the Primary ballot, won a narrow victory over David Malpass, former Chief Economist at Bear Stearns, to win the nomination for a 2 year unexpired term in the US Senate. Bruce Blakeman, former Nassau County legislator trailed with 15% of the Rensselaer County vote, 21% in the eastern towns. DioGuardi took 42% of the vote in Rensselaer County and 37% in the Eastwick area. He will face Kirsten Gillibrand in November who won the Democratic Primary election easily over challenger Gail Goode, a lawyer from New York City.
In the Democratic Primary for Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, a State Senator from New York City claimed a narrow victory, with 34% of the vote, over Kathleen Rice, the Nassau County District Attorney. In Rensselaer County and the Eastwick area, however, Rice managed to edge out Schneiderman with 33% and 35% of the vote respectively. Among the other contenders in this race, downstate trial lawyer Sean Coffey took about 23% of the vote up here, six percentage points better than he did statewide. Trailing Coffey were Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester County, with 9.8 percent of the statewide votes, and Eric Dinallo, former State Insurance Superintendent, with 7.9 percent. Dinallo got only 2% of the vote in the Eastwick towns.
