May 2008 was a very bad month for Vito Fossella. On the first day of that month, the then-Republican congressman from Staten Island was arrested for DUI. That quickly led to the revelation that Fossella was quite literally living a double life, keeping a family back home and another one in Virginia. Not only was he having an affair, but he also had a 3-year old daughter in the latter family. He announced late that month that he wouldn’t seek reelection.
2021 Election: Complete coverage and analysis ArrowRight
On Tuesday, Fossella completed the kind of comeback that so many other New York City politicians tried and failed to accomplish. Not Eliot Spitzer. Not Anthony Weiner. Not Michael Grimm. Fossella edged out a primary victory and has now won election as Staten Island borough president — and resoundingly so, by a 2-to-1 margin currently.
The dual-family issue didn’t really come up much during the campaign, as New York magazine reported. Former borough president James Molinaro helpfully explained: “There’s not a man alive that probably didn’t have an affair while he was married or before he was married.” That’s certainly a take!
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Fossella’s win represents one of the more remarkable down-ballot results in a remarkable — if smaller in scale — 2021 election year. Some of the biggest surprises could also be some of the most significant results, with implications for who controls legislatures. Others races made history in other ways.
Below are some of the other notable results that might not make national headlines but should register.
Stephen Sweeney
The big headlines Wednesday are about New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), who looks like he will probably narrowly survive a surprisingly close reelection bid against Republican Jack Ciattarelli that still has no winner.
But even if Murphy wins, that would mask just how much ground New Jersey Republicans made up across the state. A case in point: longtime state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D), the state’s second-most-powerful political official, appears to be losing in a shocker.
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The latest results show Sweeney trailing 52 percent to 48 percent against Republican Edward Durr.
To be clear, Sweeney has had close races before in his semi-competitive South Jersey district, but the circumstances here are something else: Durr is a truck driver who recently reported spending just $153 on his campaign. Politico reports Durr says he wound up spending less than $10,000.
“By contrast,” it notes, “in 2017, when the New Jersey Education Association, state’s largest teachers union, was feuding with Sweeney, it spent about $5.4 million to take him out, yet he still won by 18 points.”
Durr’s name barely registered in coverage of the elections until Tuesday night. And in 2019, he lost a seat for the state assembly, finishing fourth out of four candidates in a district featuring two winners.
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These kinds of things can happen in a wave election; sometimes incumbents nobody expected to lose who face unheralded opponents can get swept up. But given Sweeney’s status and the shoestring campaign against him, it certainly speaks to the idea that this was a bad environment for Democrats. It would also mark a major shift in the state’s politics; Sweeney is the longest-serving Senate leader in New Jersey’s history.
Martha Mugler
Speaking of big upsets by an underfunded candidate, Virginia Republicans are on track to win the state House of Delegates thanks to one of their own.
Political neophyte and cybersecurity professional A.C. Cordoza narrowly leads Virginia state Del. Martha M. Mugler (D), despite spending only about $50,000 on his campaign — about one-12th what Mugler did. Mugler was also thought to be rather safe heading into election night, with some rating her race as “likely Democratic.”
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The GOP appears likely to gain at least a 50-50 split in the chamber, and could hit 51 seats if Cordoza and others hold on to their leads. In other words, a little-known candidate spending $50,000 in a sleepy race could determine whether Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) has a GOP-controlled state House.
Mugler’s former job is also worth noting here: She was the former head of Hampton, Va.'s, school board, until winning her seat in 2019.
India Walton
We covered this a bit in our takeaways Wednesday morning. Basically, it was a repeat of the 2010 Alaska Senate race: More-extreme candidate defeats incumbent in primary. Incumbent runs write-in campaign. Incumbent wins easily.
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Or at least that’s how it appears. The latest results show the write-in option leading Walton, a democratic socialist who defeated Mayor Byron Brown (D) in a primary, 59 percent to 41 percent. It’s not clear who those write-ins actually are, but it’s safe to assume nearly all of them are for Brown. Walton has acknowledged the writing is on the wall, so to speak.
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Such successful write-in campaigns are exceedingly rare, especially on the national level. When Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) managed it in 2010, she became the first senator since the 1950s to do so. The last time it happened in the House was 1982. And on the mayoral level, Mike Duggan pulled it off in 2013 in Detroit after being removed from the ballot.
Walton’s campaign carries other parallels to the Alaska race, in that despite winning a primary, she failed to truly win over her party — just like Alaska GOP candidate Joe Miller, who wound up being overwhelmingly unpopular even in a red state.
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The state party and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) avoided endorsing Walton, though Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) ultimately did. Local observers cite Walton’s lack of outreach to the broader party for her apparent, historically notable defeat.
Long Island
If there was one area that epitomized how much GOP momentum registered in a very specific area, it might be Long Island.
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As the New York Times recounted:
On Long Island, Democrats faced staggering losses up and down the ballot.
... Anne Donnelly, a Republican, defeated State Senator Todd Kaminsky, a Democrat, for district attorney in Nassau County, and Timothy Sini, the Democratic district attorney in Suffolk County, lost his seat to the Republican candidate, Ray Tierney. Laura Curran, the Nassau County executive seen as a strong incumbent, trailed her Republican opponent, Bruce Blakeman, on Wednesday.
Former congressman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who once led House Democrats’ campaign efforts, summed it up to the Times.
“On Long Island you had underfunded, unknown Republicans routing well-funded, well-known Democrats,” he said. “Any time a generic candidate beats a more defined candidate from the other party, you know something’s happening.”
The fact this happened across several states speaks to Israel’s point. That it happened in the suburbs might be even more depressing for Democrats, given how vital those will be moving forward.
That it didn’t happen on an even grander scale seems to owe mostly to the relatively small number of elections taking place on Tuesday. But that won’t be the case in 2022.