
After a painfully elongated process, it seems the special election to replace corrupt State Senator Carl Kruger is almost over. The hand recount of the 20,000 ballots cast on March 20th should be finished in the next day or two and the Republican candidate, David Storobin, is close to securing a win with an extremely narrow margin.
According to multiple Republican tipsters, the unofficial tally has Mr. Storobin ahead by 24 votes, and unless something drastic happens that causes the counting of the final 25% or so of the ballots to shift towards his Democratic rival, Lew Fidler, Mr. Storobin could definitively declare victory before the month is over.
As Mr. Fidler has challenged a couple more ballots than Mr. Storobin has, the latest margin doesn’t represent any real improvement over the 27 he was down by at the start of the process. Although the new voting machines have reported some discrepancies from the Election Day tally, there does not seem to be much of a partisan lean to the errors, something Mr. Fidler would have needed to overcome his deficit.
However, even as Mr. Storobin prepares to go to Albany, he’ll need to immediately hit the campaign trail hard. He has vowed to seek reelection in a substantially reconfigured district where former City Councilman Simcha Felder has emerged as a very strong contender for the seat on the Democratic line.
The counting begins again at the Board of Elections tomorrow.