New York 2012 Election Results

New York held its general election on November 6, 2012, deciding 213 legislative seats. Control shifted: the Senate moved from a 33-29 Republican majority to organization by a bipartisan coalition.

Highlights

• Democrats won the Senate 33-30 but did not get control. Senator-elect Simcha Felder (D) said he would caucus with Republicans, and in December Senate Republicans and the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) struck a deal to take control, agreeing to alternate the temporary president post, the Senate's top job, every two weeks. Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Queens Democrat, joined the IDC the day the deal was announced, bringing it to five members. In the Assembly, Democrats widened their majority past the two-thirds mark.
• Two Republican senators who had voted for same-sex marriage in 2011 lost their seats. Sen. Roy J. McDonald narrowly lost a GOP primary to Kathleen A. Marchione (R) and stopped campaigning, though he remained on the ballot as the Independence Party candidate; Marchione won Senate District 43 easily. In Senate District 41, Terry W. Gipson (D) beat Sen. Stephen M. Saland (R) by about 2,100 votes, while Neil A. DiCarlo (Conservative), who entered over Saland's marriage vote, drew more than 17,000.
• The new Senate District 46 took more than two months to settle. Assemblyman George A. Amedore, Jr. (R) was declared a 37-vote winner by a judge in December, but an appellate court ordered more contested ballots counted, and Cecilia F. Tkaczyk (D) finished ahead by 18 votes.
• On the first post-census maps, other incumbents who lost included:
  • Edward J. Hennessey (D) unseated Assemblyman Dean Murray (R) by about 260 votes in Assembly District 3.
  • In a rematch of their 2010 race in the old 121st District, which Miller had won, Al Stirpe (D) beat Assemblyman Donald R. Miller (R) by about 6,300 votes in the renumbered Assembly District 127.
  • Simcha Felder (D) beat Sen. David Storobin (R), who had won a special election in the old 27th District earlier in the year, in the new Senate District 17.
  • Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera (Working Families), rocked by scandal and investigations, lost the September primary to Mark Gjonaj (D) and finished third on the Working Families line in Assembly District 80.
  Among the survivors, Assemblyman John D. Ceretto (R), who had represented the old 138th District, held Assembly District 145 by about 960 votes.

Legislature

• Assembly (150 seats): 99 D, 51 R before the election, 107 D, 43 R after; control stayed with Democrats.
• Senate (63 seats): 30 D, 32 R before the election, 33 D, 30 R after; control moved from Republicans to a bipartisan coalition.

Legislative races