Five seats, six candidates – that was the race last night for the New York Supreme Court justices from Western New York. But with cross nominations for four of the candidates – the race really came down to Democrat Shannon Heneghan versus Republican-endorsed candidate Joe Lorigo. Lorigo, the Erie County Legislature Minority Leader, claimed almost-victory Tuesday night at Republican headquarters.
“I guess we still have a couple of districts that are left to be reported in Erie County. So we can't officially declare victory. But as you heard the numbers are very good. And I think that it would be it would be virtually impossible for my opponent to overcome that deficit.”
And as early Wednesday morning – all districts were reporting – and Lorigo totaled 289,208 votes – and Heneghan had the least votes of all 6 candidates at 235,593. Notably, 383,563 voters also left the Supreme Court race blank according to the New York state board of elections.
