The last House race of 2010 is resolved.
ALTSCHULER CONCEDES
Randy Altschuler, Republican/Conservative candidate, this morning conceded the hard-fought race for New York’s 1st Congressional District seat. With approximately 977 absentee ballots left to be counted, unofficial numbers showed four-term Democrat incumbent Congressman Tim Bishop with a 263 vote lead over Altschuler, with a total of more than 194,000 votes cast. The 1st Congressional District was the last undecided House seat in the nation.
Additionally, the Altschuler campaign dropped its legal challenges to the remaining uncounted absentee ballots. This will allow the Suffolk County Board of Elections to count the remaining ballots. While the Altschuler campaign has uncovered numerous instances of absentee ballots that may have been unlawfully cast, the campaign is confident that the proper authorities will take the appropriate action concerning them and that their number is too small to alter the outcome of the election.
Randy Altschuler said, “After consulting with my family and campaign staff, I am ending my campaign and offering congratulations to Congressman Tim Bishop on his victory. Although Newsday, The New York Times and the Bishop campaign have all called for a hand recount of all the ballots cast on Election Day, I will not support such an action as I feel its cost will place an unnecessary burden on the taxpayers of Suffolk County. This was a very close election, and I want to thank everyone who was involved. Let me assure each and every one of my supporters, including my volunteers, donors and campaign staff, that your hard work, friendship and generosity will never be forgotten.
“I also want to thank the voters of Suffolk County. You proved that every vote does count and why it is so important that all Americans participate in our electoral process.
“I entered this race because I was worried about the future of our nation. The problems America faces are many and will not be easily solved. I plan to stay active in politics and continue to speak out on the issues that affect the residents of Suffolk County, our state and our nation. Those issues include high taxes, runaway spending and an ever-growing deficit. I intend to play an active role in building the Republican and Conservative Party voices in both Suffolk County and New York State.”
With this race resolved, the final count is that the GOP won picked up an additional 63 seats this year.
Not to be a stickler, but I think you mean that the GOP picked up a net of 63 seats.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think Altschuler will be back in 2012 - the question will be whether Democrats consider that a sufficient threat to draw him out of the 1st District. Right now it looks like NY-1 will continue to be a real toss-up district as there's no real way to keep Israel (NY-2) safe while making the 1st more Democratic (it is currently EVEN on the PVI) - and since Israel is an appropriator and the chair of the DCCC, I doubt the party in NY will be looking to make his life more difficult.
It would be hard to take the more GOP areas out of the 1st (probably Smithtown) without putting them in the 2nd, which would require finding new Democratic areas to add to the 2nd - but there aren't many out there - the neighboring areas to the west are in King's 3rd District, which was already drawn to be a safe GOP seat. That means that either the 1st stays even and Altschuler can come back for a rematch, or he could potentially wind up in a much more competitive 2nd district and challenge Israel.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI live in this district. This was the first year that we had paper ballots. Prior to these, it was the mechanical voting machines. This race really made me wonder about all the years that people have been voting on a system that didn't really allow a reexamination of all the votes cast. Just clicks in a machine. I wonder how secure that was.
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