POLITICS

Rice, Blakeman win primaries

DA, former legislator to face off in November

Posted

Kathleen Rice, Nassau County’s top prosecutor, bested Kevan Abrahams, the highest-ranking Democrat in the County Legislature, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the 4th Congressional District, according to unofficial County Board of Election results. In the Republican primary, Bruce Blakeman, a former presiding officer of the County Legislature and a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey commissioner, defeated Frank Scaturro, a New Hyde Park attorney and former Republican staffer for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, also according to the unofficial results.

At 12:23 a.m. Wednesday the County Board of Elections reported that Rice captured 56 percent of the Democratic vote to Abrahams’s 44 percent, and that Blakeman captured 65 percent of the Republican vote to Scaturro’s 34 percent.

Blakeman also won the Conservative Party primary, in which he captured 66 percent of the vote, according to the unofficial Board of Election results. His name was the only one printed on the ballot, but Scaturro sought to take the ballot line through write-ins, as he did in 2012.

The 4th Congressional District covers much of Nassau’s South Shore. The district has about 206,000 registered Democrats, 171,000 Republicans and 135,000 voters who are not members of either party, according to the State Board of Elections.

Just 12,300 Democrats, 13,000 Republicans and 951 Conservatives voted in Tuesday’s primaries, the County Board of Elections reported. Voter turnout is often low in primaries in midterm election years. The June date for federal primaries, which first took place in 2012, may have also contributed to low turnout.

Rice has to date widely outraised and outspent the other candidates in the race. The most recent Federal Election Commission numbers, from June 4, show Rice has raised $2.1 million and spent $640,000. Abrahams, on the other hand, spent most of his campaign’s war chest — $112,00 of $162,00. Blakeman has amassed $403,000 and spent $161,000, Scaturro $198,000 and $129,000.

Page 1 / 3