NEW YORK (AP) — Republicans picked up at least five House seats across New York and could boost the number to six as the antiestablishment, anti-incumbent wave sweeping midterm elections reached into one of the nation’s most reliably blue states.
Democrats lost House seats from New York City to Rochester despite strong wins for the party at the top of the ticket. Andrew Cuomo’s win over Republican Carl Paladino in the governor’s race and twin victories for Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand over underfunded and largely unknown GOP opponents weren’t enough to stem deep losses down the ballot.
At least one race remained too close to call. First-term Democratic Rep. Dan Maffei and Republican Ann Marie Buerkle were in a dead heat in the Syracuse-area 25th district.
In Staten Island, Republican Michael Grimm scored an upset win over first-term Democratic Rep. Michael McMahon. Grimm, a retired FBI agent, narrowly defeated McMahon in the most conservative of New York’s five boroughs despite McMahon’s effort to portray himself as independent from his party’s leadership in Washington.
In the Albany area, Democratic Rep. Scott Murphy lost to Republican Chris Gibson, a retired Army colonel.
Murphy narrowly won the seat last year in a special election after then-Rep. Gillibrand was appointed to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Senate when Clinton quit to become U.S. secretary of state. Murphy started strong in his bid for re-election but was hammered by nearly $3 million in televised ads, many by outside groups criticizing his vote in favor of President Barack Obama’s health care law last spring. Gibson has vowed to repeal the law.
Another upstate Democrat, two-term Rep. Michael Arcuri, lost his Utica-area seat to Republican Richard Hanna in a rematch from 2008. Arcuri voted against Obama’s health care legislation, costing him support and funding from some Democrat-leaning interest groups. Hanna, a wealthy construction company owner, has vowed to bring greater fiscal restraint to government.
In the lower Hudson Valley, two-term Democratic Rep. John Hall lost to Republican Nan Hayworth, a retired ophthalmologist and favorite of tea party activists. Hall, who surprised observers when he upset veteran Republican Rep. Sue Kelly in the 2006 Democratic wave, was long seen as more liberal than the moderate district. Hayworth is a strong conservative.
In western New York, Republican Tom Reed, the former mayor of Corning, won the seat held by Democratic Rep. Eric Massa until last spring when he abruptly stepped down amid allegations he had sexually harassed male staffers. (Massa admitted groping a male staffer but said it was non-sexual tickling.) Reed defeated Democratic Army veteran Matt Zeller in the Republican-leaning district.
Democrats held on in eastern Long Island, where Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop squeaked to victory over Republican businessman Randy Altschuler.
In the Adirondack region, Democratic Rep. Bill Owens held onto a seat he won in a three-way special election last year. Owens beat multimillionaire GOP businessman Matt Doheny in part because Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman took 6 percent of the vote. Hoffman suspended his campaign last month after failing to win the GOP primary, but his name remained on the ballot. He also split the vote in last year’s special contest.