Golisano PAC Puts Out Senate Endorsement List
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- August
- 25
Tom Golisano’s Responsible New York PAC put out its full slate of endorsements today for the state Senate, and the group is mostly backing incumbents—20 Republicans and 19 Democrats.
The group is backing eight challengers, including six Democrats and two Republicans—enough to certainly shake the power structure of Republicans’ narrow 31-29 lead in the Senate.
Responsible New York is not endorsing candidates in 15 races.
So let’s see, that’s 47 candidates divided by Golisano’s $5 million into the PAC. That’s about $106,000 a race. (The $5M check is above.)
But Golisano and his co-chairs say not every race will be funded equally, and will depend on the competitiveness of the races. They said they haven’t made any funding decisions yet.
You can read the full list here.
The committee jumps into some of the tightest races in the state. It’s backing Caesar Trunzo’s Democratic opponent on Long Island, Brian Foley, and also on Long Island supporting Democratic Sen. Craig Johnson’s GOP opponent Barbara Donno.
It’s not making an endorsement of Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith, nor Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos—despite Skelos’ passionate plea. And it’s also staying out of the GOP Sen. Serph Maltese reelection bid in Queens.
The group isn’t backing Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, and not making any endorsement in her race, though it is backing Democratic Sens. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, and Ruth Hassell-Thompson, D-Mt. Vernon.
It’s endorsing Democratic Sen. Darrel Aubertine in his North Country re-election bid, a race that Republicans hope to win back after losing in a special election last February.
And as we reported last week, it’s also endorsing Rochester-area Democratic challengers Rick Dollinger and David Nachbar, as well as Republican Sen. George Maziarz.
Laureen Oliver, Responsible New York’s co-chair, said the full list of endorsements for state Assembly races will be released after the Democratic convention, where Golisano is heading tomorrow to sit in his $1 million sky box.
This entry was posted
on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 4:35 pm by Joseph Spector.
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the failure of Golisano to endorse incubant andrea
stewart cousins speaks volumes about her performance
and her support within her own leadership