Politics & Government

Maertz was Optimistic Even as LaValle Pulled Way Ahead in Polls

LaValle won New York State senate seat for 18th time as challenger Maertz pondered what might have been if given more time.

Kenneth LaValle will return to Albany for the 18th time after trouncing his Democratic challenger in the polls for the First District New York State senate seat but Jennifer Maertz said that with enough time to campaign she may have been able to beat the Republican incumbent.

While Maertz was running her campaign she told Patch in an interview that she believed the Republican incumbent was "highly beatable." Her confidence was based on the fact that when he ran for the the same seat he's held since 1976 - the year that Maertz was born - in the last election in 2008 he went unchallenged and many people stayed home that year rather than cast a vote for the LaValle.

Despite high hopes by the Democrats, Lavalle won with 66 percent of the vote, or 58,880 votes, Wednesday morning firmly holding his seat.

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LaValle seemed to benefit from voter frustration with the economy. He said he wanted to see caps on government spending and real property taxes during his campaign as well as putting the STAR rebate program back into place.

"A reinstatement of the STAR rebate checks would be an early action," LaValle said.

Find out what's happening in Port Jeffersonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Another issue with Long Islanders has been the MTA payroll tax and he supports repealing it when he gets back to Albany.

"It's got to be repealed," said LaValle on Tuesday after it was becoming more apparent that he was going to return to Albany.

Maertz said that she did well despite only having two months to run her campaign.

"And the fact that we had a court battle to challenge my legitimacy as a candidate after Regina (Calcaterra) was found unable to run," she said. "So we've come a long way in a short period of time. I think we've shown the weakness of LaValle - we'll have to capitalize next time."

Earlier Tuesday night, even when Maertz was losing, with LaValle holding steady at 65 percent to her own 30 percent of the votes she wasn't thinking about the next election.

"We have to get through this first," she said, still hoping for a big comeback.

But when it seemed certain that she wasn't going to win Maertz was still optimistic that she could have beaten LaValle given enough time.

"No matter how much time you have, you always want more time," Maertz said. "But two months is two months. I'm confident if we had more time we could have pulled this off."


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