republicans appeared to retain control of the new york state senate in tuesday<u+2019>s elections, but democrats accused the gop of declaring victory too soon and signaled the chamber could still turn democratic. with results in all but two of the senate races declared, the gop emerged with 30 seats, with a democrat, sen. simcha felder, who caucuses with republicans, giving them the 31. gop sen. carl marcellino of long island appeared poised to retain his seat, which would give the republicans control of 32 seats. a massapequa-area face-off between democrat john brooks and republican sen. michael venditto remained uncalled on wednesday. on long island, republican elaine phillips beat democrat adam haber, 52% to 48%. but democrats held on to another nassau county seat: sen. todd kaminsky, a former federal prosecutor, defeated gop challenger chris mcgrath, 52% to 47%. <u+201c>we have grown our majority,<u+201d> senate gop spokesman scott reif said. still, a spokesman for the senate democrats, mike murphy, said on wednesday that the conference expected mr. venditto to win his race and for democrat james gaughran to pick up a seat in a race against mr. marcellino. the gop <u+201c>took a premature victory lap and at the end of the counting we will have more democrats in the chamber than republicans,<u+201d> mr. murphy said. for the first time in several years, democrats were within reach of taking the reins of the 63-person senate from the gop, but an 11th-hour addition to a breakaway faction of democrats hurt those chances. and the coattails of a surprising presidential victory by republican donald trump perhaps spelled a disappointing evening for down-ballot democrats in new york. it remained unclear how the so-called independent democratic conference, a five-member group that has aligned itself in a power-sharing agreement with republicans, would position itself in the next legislative session, though chances that the group would realign itself with democrats are slim. earlier in the week, the group picked up another member, sen. jesse hamilton, a brooklyn democrat. the group is also expected to pick up a seventh addition, marisol alcantara, a democrat who won her race to succeed outgoing sen. adriano espaillat. mr. felder, the brooklyn democrat who caucuses with the gop, declined to comment on tuesday<u+2019>s election results. asked if he would continue to caucus with the republicans next year, he said: <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t want to answer.<u+201d> the control of the senate has significant consequences for gov. andrew cuomo, a democrat who prides himself on bipartisanship and has at times used the gop<u+2019>s leadership position in the senate to shield himself from complaints about the lack of progress on some liberal agenda items. this year, sensing democrats could end up in command of the chamber, mr. cuomo endorsed and held events for several candidates, including messrs. kaminsky and haber. write to erica orden at erica.orden@wsj.com
republicans appear to keep control of new york state senate - wsj
erica orden