SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Primary day in New York has finally arrived today. It was pushed back from April 28 due to COVID-19. Although former Vice President Joe Biden has sealed his nomination as the Democratic nominee, here in Central New York we are following the big local races including the 24th Congressional District Democratic primary.
“The pandemic has made campaigning different and it presented us with some interesting challenges because we couldn’t do public events the way we normally would and personally. It’s a bummer because part of what is exciting to me is meeting new people every day and hearing their stories so we miss that. We engaged in virtual platforms to engage with people,” Democratic Congressional candidate Dana Balter said.
Two years ago, she ran against Rep. John Katko (R) and lost by 4.5 points. Now the opportunity has arrived for to run for the seat again, but now she is faced with campaigning during a pandemic.
“To me the pandemic has been less about campaigning and more about community and national crisis that highlights, we need our government leadership to be competent and compassionate,” Balter said.
She will still be campaigning during the few weeks she waits to find out if she has won the primary seat.
“I will serve the people of Central New York in Washington and fight for universal healthcare, common sense gun laws, safety gun control and racial justice,” Balter said.
Francis Conole is also running in the Democratic Congressional primary and is looking forward to also fighting for the people of Central New York.
“The racisms and inequities that have gone on for generations we need to confront in our local laws and policies in our institutions. This is important and I’ve served my life fighting and I am going to fight for the people of Central New York,” Conole said.
He launched his campaign on April 15 and has been on the trail for the past 434 days. It was important for him to be present in the community.
“Conole on Your Corner” was started pre-COVID where he went into the communities to talk and listen to the people throughout all four counties.
“It became ‘Conole on your computer’ and we were doing Zoom and social media events and having guests, sometimes it would be focused on a specific issue like affordable health care, education, women’s rights, social security, Medicare,” he said.
The pandemic has also changed the way we vote — 22,000 absentee ballots have been received, which is more votes cast by mail than the presidential election in 2016.
“Normally we only have 1,600 to 3,000 for a primary. In fact, the largest absentee votes we have had was 16,000 during the presidential general election.so we have way surpassed that. So this is unprecedented,” Onondaga Commissioner of the Board of Elections Dustin Czarny said.
There will be no victory parties tonight, since we won’t know who the definitive winner will be until July 8.
