Schriebman, 39, characterized Gibson, 48, as a right-of-center Tea-Party advocate whose votes in Congress were cast against seniors, women and youth. Gibson, a retired army officer, countered by calling his opponent “negative and divisive” and said his own record showed him to be a thoughtful moderate who sought bipartisan consensus on major issues. In his victory speech after midnight, Gibson thanked local Democrats Bruce Tuchman and former county Democratic chairman John Parete, who both lent him local support.
Gibson, after recording the seven-point victory, said on Wednesday his priorities were in getting a farm bill through the House and Senate, “one president Obama can sign” before the end of the year and establishing district offices in his new district. Gibson plans to locate his Ulster County office in the former Bank of America building on Broadway in Kingston. The city has yet to acquire title to that property.
Gibson said the lame-duck Congress, which will be in session next week, needs immediately to address the fiscal issues facing the nation in a bipartisan manner. “These are the things the American people expect from us,” he said.
In other Ulster County results, Obama was leading Mitt Romney by almost 15,000 votes when the county elections board issued its final report shortly after 1:30 a.m. Obama got 59.8 per cent of the Ulster County vote, as compared to 60.6 per cent in 2008.
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was routing challenger Wendy Long by a three-to-one margin, with almost 32,000 votes in Ulster.
139 vote margin for Tkaczyk
In what appears to be an upset in the making, Republican assemblyman Amedore of Rotterdam trailed Democrat Tkaczyk of Duanesburg by over 8000 votes in Ulster. Amedore offset that margin in the four other counties in the district. The Albany Times-Union was reporting that Amedore was down by 139 votes with virtually all polling places accounted for.
Tkaczyk said she was confident her razor-thin margin would hold up when several thousand absentee votes are counted, since absentees tend to go the way of votes cast on Election Day. “I wasn’t supposed to win,” she said on Wednesday. “I started out with nothing. I started out by saying I was the better candidate than this guy. I felt I was right on the issues and he was not a good candidate. Other people took notice and started helping me. All the newspapers endorsed me.”
Amedore is apparently not ready to concede. His spokesman, Kris Thompson, issued a statement on Wednesday. “This morning, we filed a show cause order in Montgomery County Supreme Court to protect and substantiate each and every ballot. We must institute safeguards to protect every vote in this process, which may take considerable time. Our campaign team implemented an ambitious absentee program in the early stages of this race. We firmly believe that once all the votes have been verified and counted, George Amedore will be the senator representing this five-county district. We will proceed with patience and confidence as this process moves forward.”
Amedore himself was not available for comment.
Changes in the Ulster County charter were headed to a decisive win with almost 22,000 voting in favor against 14,348 against.
In Saugerties, incumbent Democratic town justice Claudia Andreassen scored a convincing 4317 to 3054 victory over Republican challenger Ken Gilligan. Lanny Walter got 388 write in votes but did not campaign.
Also in Saugerties, Suzanne Filak won a better than two-to-one victory over Republican Cheryl DeForest, 5126 to 2488, for Tax collector. Filak, a Democrat, had been endorsed by retiring collector Mary Nau.
