Astorino’s Lead Narrows Over Harckham; Thousands of Absentee Ballots to Be Counted
Former Westchester County executive Rob Astorino’s lead over Democratic incumbent Peter Harckham in the 40th Senate District race has narrowed to about 7,400 votes with at least 35,000 absentee ballots to be counted districtwide.
Overnight, the Board of Elections completed the count of the in-person early voting and Election Day tallies, giving Harckham a 3,685-vote lead in Westchester County with 100 percent reporting. Harckham is in front 45,881-42,196. Astorino had led by nearly 8,300 votes in Westchester shortly after midnight and by more than 19,000 districtwide before the remainder of Westchester’s machine vote was counted.
In Putnam County, Astorino won the machine tally 8,400 votes (17,535-9,135) and by 2,746 votes (6,011- 3,265) in the Dutchess County portion of the district, according to Board of Elections totals. The Putnam and Dutchess totals also include 100 percent of the machine vote.
Speaking to supporters late Tuesday night, Astorino said the race would not be called with so many absentee ballots still to be counted.
“We’re not going to know tonight,” Astorino said. “That’s the bottom line. We’re not going to know whether we won or lost tonight. But we’re winning.”
Harckham, in his first term in the state Senate, said Tuesday night he remains “cautiously optimistic” with about 35,000 absentee ballots from the three counties that had been received by the three counties’ Tuesday afternoon. Of those about 20,000 were sent back from Democrats, 7,000 from Republicans and 8,000 from independents or minor parties, he said.
Ballots can still be received by the Board of Elections through next Tuesday as long as they were postmarked by Nov. 3.
Digital Editor Anna Young Contributed to This Report.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
