Throne-Holst Wins It
Anna Throne-Holst, a former Southampton Town supervisor, was declared the winner of the June 28 Democratic Party primary election to represent New York’s First Congressional District after a count of approximately 1,800 absentee ballots gave her a 317-vote margin over Dave Calone, a businessman, former prosecutor, and former chairman of the Suffolk County Planning Commission. With her win certified on Tuesday morning by the commissioners of the Suffolk County Board of Elections, Ms. Throne-Holst goes on to challenge Lee Zeldin, a first-term Republican, in the Nov. 8 election.
The primary election was too close to call after the count of machine votes yielded a 29-vote lead for Ms. Throne-Holst, out of 10,863 cast. After the count of absentee ballots, Ms. Throne-Holst had won 6,479 votes, or 51.25 percent, to Mr. Calone’s 6,162. Including absentee ballots, just 9.27 percent of the district’s 136,464 eligible voters cast a ballot in the primary election.
An official at the board of elections said last week that 1,811 absentee ballots were counted. Sixteen of those landed in the “scattering” column, a category for miscellaneous write-in votes, in the official result. Any challenges to an absentee ballot from one candidate’s campaign were withdrawn, the official said.
Mr. Calone bested Ms. Throne-Holst in East Hampton, where the four Democrats on the town board as well as the East Hampton Democratic Committee endorsed him, winning 570 votes to Ms. Throne-Holst’s 489. He also won in his hometown of Brookhaven, by a vote of 3,745 to 3,166, and in Islip, where he won by a single vote.
But in Southampton, Ms. Throne-Holst received 1,124 votes to Mr. Calone’s 835. She also won by a sizable margin on Shelter Island and in Riverhead, Southold, and Smithtown.
Her campaign issued a statement shortly before 4 p.m. on Friday, approximately 30 minutes after officials of the board of elections finished counting the absentee ballots but before the vote was certified. “I am deeply grateful to all who placed their trust and support in me, and I am truly humbled by the privilege it has been to get to know, share the concerns, and my message with so many,” she said. “I want to congratulate Dave Calone on a spirited race, and I share in the respect and support he garnered in the district, as demonstrated by the very close margin and the strength of his candidacy.”
“I look forward to working together with Democrats across the district to take back this important seat,” Ms. Throne-Holst said. “Lee Zeldin has shown in every way how out of step and wrong he is not only for Long Island, but for the country.”
Later on Friday, Mr. Calone issued a statement: “We were outspent in this campaign by nearly $1 million and fell short by around 300 votes. . . . That’s a testament to the great Democratic volunteers supporting our campaign across the district.”
He said he would support Ms. Throne-Holst as she looks toward November. “We cannot continue being represented by Congressman Lee Zeldin, one of Donald Trump’s loudest advocates in Washington,” he said. “So I urge people across eastern Long Island to join me in supporting our Democratic nominee, Anna Throne-Holst, to replace him this November.”
Mr. Zeldin’s office also issued a statement on Friday. It touted passage of his bills to assist veterans and preserve Plum Island from development, and his support of commercial fishermen and for local control of East Hampton Airport. “First Congressional District voters are smart enough to sort fact from fiction and reject all of the false, negative, and partisan attacks on our congressman being spun up by the Democrats,” the statement read.
A closely contested election is expected. The Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter covering political campaigns, calls the First District race a “tossup/tilt Republican.” In an article last Thursday, CQ Roll Call, which reports on Congress, called Mr. Zeldin one of the 10 most vulnerable House incumbents, citing his endorsement of Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, and his suggestion last month that President Obama is a racist.
Ms. Throne-Holst will be well funded, the article said, and New York is a blue, or majority Democratic, state. “And yet,” the article continued, “Trump’s appeal shouldn’t be totally written off in this Long Island district.” In New York’s April 19 Republican primary, Mr. Trump won nearly 73 percent of the vote in the First District.
Should Ms. Throne-Holst win the election, she would be the first woman to represent New York’s First district, in a year in which Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, would also represent a first in American history.
Ms. Throne-Holst told The Star last month that she hoped Mrs. Clinton’s coattails would be long enough to carry her to victory. “There’s some synergy there,” she said. “I think we have an excellent chance of winning this in November.”