Brown Leads Marcantonio In 12th Assembly District

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY — Republican Keith Brown leads Democrat Michael Marcantonio in the New York state 12th Assembly District race following Election Day. However, absentee ballots are yet to be counted.

Brown has a lead of 30,554 votes to 22,754, or 57.3 to 42.67 percent, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

Marcantonio has not conceded and believes absentee ballots will be enough to edge him past Brown.

"While we await the final results of this heated year-long race, we need to remain patient until all the votes are counted," Marcantonio told Patch. "Given that the Democrats heavily pushed their voters to vote absentee, while the GOP pushed in-person voting, we expect the absentee ballots to break markedly in our direction, putting us over the top."

The votes tallied Tuesday included all early votes and ballots cast on Election Day but did not include absentee ballots received so far, said Peter McGreevy, Southold Republican Committee Chair.

In the 12th District, 12,875 absentee ballots have been received, according to the Suffolk BOE. Of those, 6,124 are Democrat, 2,771 are Republican, 154 are Conservative, 507 are Independent and 3,258 are blank.

The board expects to start counting absentee ballots next Tuesday — after it has had the opportunity to remove the absentee ballots of those voters who also cast a ballot on a machine and compare the signatures, as well as have bipartisan teams compare the signatures on the oath envelopes to the voter’s signatures on file.

"While we are down right now, it’s worth stressing that so is nearly every other Democrat in Suffolk County, including heavily favored incumbents, like Congressman [Tom] Suozzi and Assembly members [Steve] Stern and [Steven] Englebright — all of whom represent bluer districts than the 12th," Marcantonio said. "The most rational explanation for this is that Democrats voted via absentee by significant margins. This would also explain why, as of tonight, the vote totals for this district were lower than 2016, despite record turnout all throughout Long Island."

Marcantonio thanked his supporters who stood by him through his campaign.

Brown has not responded to Patch's request for comment.

The 12th Assembly District covers Northport, East Northport, Centerport, Eaton's Neck, Asharoken and portions of Fort Salonga, Halesite, Greenlawn, Commack, Elwood, Dix Hills, Deer Park, and North Bay Shore. The position was previously held by Republican Andrew Raia before he retired from the state assembly.