STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – After years in the political wilderness here, Staten Island Dems have had a lot to celebrate over the last few years.
Max Rose in 2018 flipped the Staten Island/Brooklyn House seat from red to blue by beating GOP Rep. Daniel Donovan.
Also that year, Democratic Assemblyman Matthew Titone defeated Republican Ron Castorina in the race for judge of the Surrogate’s Court, gaining a coveted boroughwide judicial seat for the Democrats.
And Democrat Michael McMahon, the former congressman and North Shore city councilman, had been elected district attorney in 2015.
Add to that the fact that Democratic President Barack Obama won the Island during his 2012 re-election bid against Republican Mitt Romney and things were definitely looking up for the Democrats.
Staten Island’s House member is the pre-eminent elected official in the borough. Other than McMahon’s single term from 2009 to 2011, the GOP had held the congressional seat here since 1981.
And along with the district attorney’s office, Rose’s win gave Democrats control of two of the top boroughwide elected offices for the first time in a long time.
Dems were starting to eye 2021, when GOP Borough President James Oddo is term-limited out of office. A Democrat has not served as borough president here since Ralph Lamberti in 1989.
And the Democrats have not held the House seat, the borough presidency and the district attorney’s office here all at the same time since the 1970s.
But the borough GOP wasn’t standing pat under chairman Brendan Lantry. The party a Civil Court seat in the Democratic North Shore lasts year and had state Supreme Court election successes, and has seen GOP registration here skyrocket.
Still, thing were looking good for Dems. Until GOP President Donald Trump crashed the party in historic fashion on Election Day.
Trump crushed Biden on Staten Island and in the 11th Congressional District, helping to fuel a record voter turnout on Staten Island that is certain top the 182,120 seen here during Trump’s win in 2016.
And local Republicans were carried along on Trump’s coattails.
When election night was over, GOP Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis had claimed victory over Rose; veteran Mid-Island Democratic Assemblyman Michael Cusick trailed his out-of-nowhere GOP opponent, Anthony DeGuerre, and Malliotakis' East Shore/Brooklyn Assembly seat had been captured by Republican Michael Tannousis. Meanwhile, Castorina took an Islandwide Civil Court seat.
With at least 40,000 absentee ballots yet to be counted districtwide, and another 10,000 ballots mailed out and yet to be returned, Rose on Election Night declined to concede the race.
But with Malliotakis leading by more than 37,000 votes, Rose faces daunting math in his bid to become the first Democrat here to win back-to-back House races since John Murphy in 1978.
That said, will Malliotakis be able to hold the seat in 2022 without Trump at the top of the ticket? The seat has flipped back and forth more since 2008 than it did in the three decades prior to that. There could still be tumultuous times ahead.
Perhaps the biggest shock of the night for Democrats was seeing Cusick, their party chairman, behind in his race for re-election.
Cusick is the longest-tenured lawmaker currently serving on the Island, a popular lawmaker whose family has deep roots in Democratic Island politics.
DeGuerre, an attorney, is a first-time candidate whose name many Islanders likely heard for the first time on election night. If he prevails, it would mark the first time that Republicans have controlled three of Staten Island’s four state Assembly seats.
But with DeGuerre leading by less than 1,200 votes, observers said it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the absentee votes push Cusick over the finish line.
Still, it’s a blow for Dems to see their party chairman and the dean of the borough’s Albany delegation pushed to the limit like this. And you can be sure that the GOP will tee up against Cusick again in two years if DeGuerre does fall short.
But they’ll have to do it without that mammoth Trump vote at the top of the ticket.
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November 05, 2020 at 10:47PM
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Trump delivers big blow to what had been resurgent Staten Island Democratic Party (analysis) - SILive.com
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