Republican George Borrello has won the 57th Senate seat once held by Sen. Catharine Young
Chautauqua County Executive George Borrello easily defeated Democratic challenger Austin Morgan for 57th Senate seat in a special election Tuesday.
Unofficial results from the New York State Board of Elections show Borrello winning 41,410 votes, or 67.29 percent of the vote, compared to Morgan’s 16,454 votes, or 26.74 percent.
Based on enrollment numbers for the district, 37.5 percent of active, eligible voters in the 57th Senate District cast votes in Tuesday’s special election.
The Senate seat became open earlier this year when longtime Senator Catharine Young, R-Olean, stepped down to take a job at Cornell University. The district includes all of Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Chautauqua counties, as well as parts of Livingston County.
Before becoming county executive in 2017, Borrello was a Chautauqua County legislator for eight years and was vice chair of the Audit and Control Committee and Chair of the Planning and Economic Development Committee of the Legislature.
In the Republican primary, Borello defeated Allegany County Legislator Curtis Crandall in a vote of 7,453 to 4,247.
Morgan, 22, is a recent graduate of Cornell University, was the only democrat running in the special election primary and was pushed through to the general election against Borrello. With a degree in human development and full-time work experience in the New York Senate as a legislative analyst for the 2018 year, Morgan joined the race to “carry on Cathy Young’s legacy” and deliver a better future for his district..
Endorsed by the New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the Public Employees Federation, the United Auto Workers, the Southwestern New York Building and Construction Trades Council, and the state’s Young Democrats Rural Caucus, Morgan said he wanted to change the face of the Senate by including more representation of the working class.
