Losquadro Tops Alessi by 40 Votes

Republican challenger Dan Losquadro narrowly scored more votes than Democrat incumbent Marc Alesssi on Tuesday, grabbing 50.05 percent of the vote with 100 percent of the votes tallied, the Suffolk County Board of Elections reported.

Election results show that the First Assembly District had the highest turnout rate among all 11 Assembly races in Suffolk County, drawing 42,028 voters to the polls. The two candidates remained separated by 40 votes.

When Alessi took the stage early Wednesday morning in Islandia at the Suffolk County Democratic Committee, he held a lead of 100 votes over Losquadro with over 95 percent of votes in.

"We stand here today after long arduous campaign with victories under our belt able to say this campaign is not over," Alessi said. "It has just begun."

Alessi is an attorney who worked for the Civil Service Employees Association and the State Comptroller before taking office in 2005. In the assembly, he serves on committees set up to improve labor, energy, agriculture, and aging issues. Alessi passed bills to help wineries hold special events and to extend the North Fork Wine Trail. Recently, Alessi has made headlines by starting a website devoted to helicopter noise reduction, where residents can directly e-mail the Federal Aviation Administration with concerns over passing helicopters. If re-elected, Alessi says he plans to introduce legislation to help control deer population and to continue to reform healthcare.

Meanwhile, Losquadro is the minority leader of the Suffolk County Legislature and was first elected to office in 2003. Before that, he worked as a property claims investigator for State Farm Insurance. He helped pass bills to establish the county's first drinking water distribution standards and currently sits on the board of directors of the county's Soil and Water District. Losquadro is an advocate of more stringent financial disclosure laws and changing the state pension system, which creates a burden on taxpayers. He said he wants to see a coalition created in the assembly to take power away from New York City.