Suffolk Dems not writing off county clerk's race

Daily Point

Dueling write-in campaigns? Quixotic turn in Suffolk clerk's race

A write-in campaign for political office is like a 5-leg parlay bet — winning is, at best, a wing and a prayer.

Some Democrats and progressives in Suffolk County — slighted by an insider move that pulled the Democratic Party-endorsed candidate for county clerk off the ballot — are mounting dueling write-in campaigns to find replacement candidates.

A write-in is almost always a shot in the dark. Dueling write-in campaigns ... you get the idea.

Progressives on Facebook called for candidates and have narrowed the list to four, although in an email they said former Assemb. Christine Pellegrino is "… our favorite, current choice ..." even though progressives have yet to offer her the nod.

Kathryn Casey Quigley, the Southold Town Dem chair who is challenging county leader Rich Schaffer for control of the party on Sept. 22, is also screening candidates for a write-in campaign for clerk with a final decision to be made on Sept. 14.

To say the clerk's race in 2026 has been outlandish is understating things just a tad.

"We've all been kind of like in this weird circle together and hopefully the circle will close around a candidate," said Kimberly Wilder, a progressive who helped organize an online poll to find a write-in candidate.

The political odyssey began last month when Anthony Portesy, the Brookhaven Town Democratic Party chair, accepted the Conservative Party line for a state Supreme Court judgeship, an insider move largely seen as part of a deal to clear the field for incumbent County Clerk Vincent Puleo, a Conservative with Republican support. Portesy has stated on social media posts that he has no intention of being a judge. He accepted the Conservative Party line as an election law maneuver to get off the ballot for clerk.

Casey Quigley, Wilder and others said Portesy's move was proof that county establishment Democrats were too entrenched with Conservatives and Republicans.

Puleo, now the only candidate on the ballot, owns a St. James mall with a foot spa tied to alleged sex acts, according to a Newsday news division story in July. Puleo said he terminated the spa's lease and asked the county district attorney to investigate. "Illegal activity of any kind will not be tolerated and has no place in our communities," he previously told Newsday.

Shoshana Hershkowitz, a Suffolk progressive who said she switched party registration to Democrat to support Casey Quigley, said the write-in effort is to show voters that contested elections matter.

"This is a grassroots attempt to restore choice that was taken from us," Hershkowitz said. "The ideal thing would have been to have Anthony on the ballot ... but at this point, people are trying to salvage a real mess and give [voters] a choice."

Wilder said she hopes that Casey Quigley and perhaps even Schaffer unify behind a single write-in candidate that all Democrats can support. A county Democratic Party source who backs Schaffer, however, dismissed that as "ludicrous."

"From a practical perspective, this is a preposterously foolish waste of time and effort," the Schaffer supporter told The Point. "In a year where you are trying to elect people to Congress to put a check on the Trump presidency, the idea that anyone would think this is the best use of time and effort would seriously lead me to question that person's judgment."

Casey Quigley, however, said Schaffer is the one who showed poor judgment by pulling a switcheroo on Portesy.

"Kicking your own candidate that you recruited off the ballot? That is not how I will do business," Casey Quigley said.

Long shots notwithstanding, Casey Quigley said getting a challenger on the ballot will show a better way for Democrats to select candidates as opposed to backroom deals that leave elections unopposed.

"People want to see the Democratic Party fighting," she said.

Wilder said progressives would back Casey Quigley's write-in candidate if the person is sufficiently progressive. Casey Quigley and Wilder each told The Point they are not collaborating on their write-in campaigns. Meanwhile, Wilder is still running her own campaign for New York's 2nd Assembly District under the "Voter Options" party line.

"There could be three competing write-in candidates, or there's the hope that a beautiful blue wave might unite them all," she said.

But that doesn't factor reality. Just how many people want to be a write-in candidate for an obscure countywide office with little support and less than two months to campaign?

Whoever volunteers to tilt at this windmill should watch their step following the White Rabbit.

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

Kimberly Wilder is a candidate on the ballot for New York’s 2nd Assembly District on the “Voter Options” party line. A Point item Thursday misstated her status.

Pencil Point

Never forget

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Reference Point

Power trip through the years

Propel NY's $3.26 billion proposal to build new energy transmission lines connecting Long Island to New York faces opposition today, but it certainly is not the first of its kind. 

Forty years ago this week, Newsday's editorial board wrote an editorial titled "LI's Crucial Link to the Mainland's Power" about how the New York Power Authority (NYPA) "finally" came up with a proposal that would bring electricity from upstate and Canada to Long Island.

"The new 600-megawatt, $290-million transmission line would run from Yonkers to East Garden City beneath Long Island Sound and local streets and highways," the board wrote on Sept. 10, 1986. "It will entail some construction-related inconvenience to people along the route, but the additional power it will provide is essential."

The proposal came amid the uncertain future of locally generated power by the Long Island Lighting Company nuclear power plant in Shoreham that was engulfed in controversy in the 1980s for tremendous cost overruns and safety concerns. Fully built out, it never went online and was later decommissioned in the early 1990s.

"The need for better electricity links between Long Island and the mainland was recognized long before the Shoreham power plant became a big issue," the board wrote. "Now that the plant's future is in doubt the need is all the more urgent."

That transmission line project, known as the Long Island Sound Cable (Y-49), was initiated to "provide at least a short-term reprieve from blackouts and brownouts." However, the board warned that it wouldn't end the need for power generated locally, since the Quebec hydropower sources were 1,000 miles away, and the upstate plants were distant, too.

Ultimately, that 26-mile transmission line was built and placed into service in May 1991 to become part of the statewide network of high-voltage transmission lines. In 2022, NYPA invested in modernizing the line's aging infrastructure. In the early 2000s, another controversial transmission emerged with the Cross Sound Cable that connected New Haven, Connecticut, to Shoreham on the Island. It was dormant because of politics until the 2003 Northeast blackout when it was energized to power the collapsed grid. Today, it provides about 7% of the electricity needs of Long Island, according to the American Public Power Association.

Back in 1986, the editorial board had a sense of what was ahead for all of these transmission line proposals.

"Big projects like this one have a tendency to slip. In any event, opposition from people living along the route would virtually assure delays — and in this case delays are something Long Island cannot afford."

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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