Sixty-five percent to 20 percent to 14 percent. That was the count, with 86% of the estimated vote in, when the Associated Press declared New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli the winner of the Democratic primary. His two challengers, Drew Warshaw and Raj Goyle, finished well back. But getting the race onto the ballot at all was the news.
A rare contest
DiNapoli has held the job since 2007. Spectrum News called this the first competitive Democratic primary for comptroller in quite some time, and City & State described it as his first primary since taking office. He was the only statewide officeholder to face a primary this year, and he is now the longest-serving non-congressional statewide officeholder. The prize is a fifth full term as the state’s chief financial officer.
Warshaw is a former nonprofit housing executive and Port Authority official. Goyle is an entrepreneur, attorney and former Kansas state legislator. Both came at DiNapoli from the left. In a Spectrum News 1 debate in May, they attacked his long run as comptroller and his entrenchment in Albany politics.
Where the left split
The insurgents never settled who owned the progressive lane. City & State reported that the Working Families Party, which has backed DiNapoli before, sat the race out. That was a blow to him, but a bigger one to Warshaw and Goyle, who both wanted the endorsement as a way to unite left-wing voters. Neither Mayor Zohran Mamdani nor the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed, and the comptroller race was largely overshadowed by the congressional contests that night.
It still got nasty. A third candidate, Adem Bunkedekko, tried to petition his way onto the ballot, but challenges to his signatures from Warshaw’s campaign knocked him off. Warshaw’s campaign also went after many of Goyle’s signatures, without success.
All three candidates used matching funds in the first test of the state’s new public campaign finance system for a statewide election, collecting millions of public dollars between them.
What they said
“Tonight’s victory is a victory for every single working family in New York State,” DiNapoli said, adding that the campaign was over and the work of protecting taxpayers and retirees came next.
Goyle took a defiant line. “Tonight was not our night, but the fight is far from finished,” he said, arguing that his campaign had “shook an office” that had ignored public investments. Warshaw thanked volunteers and pointed to the “two hundred thousand New Yorkers who chose change.”
DiNapoli, backed by the state’s Democratic machine, now faces Republican Joseph Hernandez, a biotech entrepreneur, in the November general election. New York has not elected a Republican as state comptroller since 1990. Election Day is Nov. 3.
Sources
- N.Y. state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli wins Democratic primary, defeats 2 challengers – Spectrum News
- DiNapoli easily wins his first primary challenge in nearly two decades – City & State New York
