Democrat Louise Slaughter has won her House of Representative re-election bid, but by a very narrow margin.
This afternoon, the Monroe County Board of Elections counted approximately 2,800 remaining absentee and affidavit ballots cast in the 25th Congressional District race. After the tallies, Slaughter held an 869 vote lead over her Republican opponent, Gates Supervisor Mark Assini, according to the board. She received a total of 96,800 votes to Assini’s 95,931.
In a brief interview, Assini said that had talked Slaughter and conceded the race. He congratulated her on a hard- fought campaign, wished her luck, and told her he’ll keep her in his prayers, he said.
Assini’s performance in the race surprised a lot of people, including Democrats and the local media. Retail politics — going out and talking to as many individual voters as possible — was key, he said.
“Our grassroots campaign was extremely powerful,” he said.
And Assini also said that he “will absolutely keep an eye on” running for Congress again in two years.
The results won’t be official for at least another week, and the Board of Elections will have some more ballots to count next week. But at this point, the board only has three or four uncounted ballots in hand and doesn’t expect many more, Democratic Elections Commissioner Tom Ferrarese says. The only incoming ballots that must be counted at this point are military absentee ballots, which must arrive at the Board of Elections by November 17.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2014.
Well… what can I say except congratulations to Louise. I wanted a new person in our District but it was not to be. Keep up the pressure to make sure that Rochester-Monroe County has a better tax climate so we can get some good paying jobs before 2016.
Craig R. Moffitt
Elections can sometimes be fun to watch, this one was a blast! Assini ran a 1950 s style campaign (that is a compliment, not a diss) which featured a candidate actually knocking on doors, talking about what he would do if elected, and listening to the voters. He had limited resources, but unlimited desire!
No negative ads, no negative mailers, no “snarky” debate lines. He brought two extremely different on air people together in their support of him (Wease and Lonsberry) and, we as voters got a real choice in style in this election.
Louise is legendary and has served this community well. This race is almost like watching someone turn a page…from style to roadmap for the future of elections here, it feels like one era passed and another has begun…at least, I hope so.