It’s unclear who will win the June 23 Democratic primary for East Hampton Town supervisor, but one thing about the 2026 supervisor race became clear last week: As in 2025, there will be no Republican candidate on the November ballot.
The deadline to name a candidate has passed, meaning that the primary race between the incumbent, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, and her challenger, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, will in all likelihood determine the next town supervisor.
When contacted multiple times by multiple reporters this spring about the Republican Party’s intentions, Manny Vilar, the chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, said he was focused on the Albany budget. He is the managing partner at Accabonac Strategies, a government advocacy consultant.
A call to a number listed on the Republican Committee website last week went directly to voice mail. The mailbox was full.
Both candidates who ran on the Republicans ticket last fall, J.P. Foster (for town board) and Jeff Miller (for town clerk), had no information about the town Republicans this week. Further, both men have changed their party registration to Democratic.
“We have nobody running for supervisor,” a person in the Suffolk County Republican Committee’s office confirmed last Thursday, while declining to provide their name. “The petitions are done; we don’t have anyone running.”
“If it is true that there will not be a Republican candidate in November, I think that’s a shame,” Supervisor Burke-Gonzalez said in a text. “Our Republican neighbors may have different political beliefs from me, but they deserve a candidate where they can express those beliefs all the same.”
That said, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez lightly dodged a question about the possibility of running on the Working Families line if she were to lose the upcoming Democratic primary. She recently won that party’s endorsement.
“I am honored to again receive the endorsements of Eleanor’s Legacy, the League of Conservation Voters, the East Hampton Democrats, and Working Families Party,” she wrote. “These endorsements show my campaign’s broad base of support in East Hampton for this June primary, an election we intend to win.”
For his part, Mr. Larsen said if he loses the June primary, that would be the end of his race for supervisor.
“I would never run on any other line than the Democratic line,” he said. “That’s why if I don’t win this primary, it’s over.”
While Mr. Larsen has angered some in the Democratic establishment (he has sparred multiple times with the Suffolk County Democrats since announcing his primary run), he has also arguably grown the Democratic Party in the town, convincing over 400 Republicans and unaffiliated voters to switch their party affiliation to Democratic so they could vote in the June 23 primary.
He wasn’t surprised that the Republicans could not field a candidate.
“You can’t win in this town as a Republican,” he said. “The numbers do not work. On top of it, you have a lunatic in the White House. That doesn’t help anybody on the ballot as part of that party. To run, you need a platform. Then you need voters. Third, you need money. Who is going to donate when you know the data just doesn’t work and winning is an impossibility?”
Bill Wilkinson was the last Republican to sit in the supervisor’s seat in East Hampton after he won a second term in 2011, edging Zachary Cohen, a Democrat, by just 15 votes.
In a year when the Democrats are facing a primary, it may disappoint local Republicans that they’re unable to take advantage of the divide. Before the 2025 race, one has to look all the way back to 2013, when Larry Cantwell ran unopposed as a Democrat, to find the last time the Republicans produced no candidate.
For the 10 years between, Republicans won an average of 30 percent of the vote. In 2021, there was a three-way race for supervisor, with Jeff Bragman pulling in 28 percent on the Independence line and Kenneth Walles winning 24 percent as a Republican. In other words, as recently as 2021, over 50 percent of voters were willing to vote for a candidate not on the Democratic line, despite the 3-to-1 Democratic chokehold on voter registration.
“The local Republicans appear to be in disarray,” said Mr. Bragman, a local attorney and former Democratic town board member who toyed again with the idea of running for supervisor this year. He was interviewed by the Democratic Committee in January.
“I wish they hadn’t wasted everyone’s vote in 2021 by putting up candidates when I primaried Van Scoyoc,” he said. “The majority of people cast votes against him, which made it likely I would have won in a two-person race.”
“Look at what happened to the Republican Party since 2016,” Anna Skrenta, the chairwoman of the town’s Democratic Committee, said in a text. “Since Donald Trump took over, the party has steadily eroded — losing its principles, its purpose, and its ability to function. You can see it right here in East Hampton. This year they couldn’t even put up a candidate for town supervisor. That tells you everything you need to know. And let’s be honest — we can’t pretend anymore that local politics and national politics are separate. They’re not.”
Speaking of national politics, Representative Nick LaLota said the lack of an active Republican Party in the town wouldn’t affect his local efforts.
“That much of the East End leans left, and towns like East Hampton are bright blue, hasn’t slowed my fight to deliver for my constituents there,” he wrote in a statement. “I’ve secured $1.64 million for East Hampton in water quality projects and first responder equipment that directly benefit the community.”
“Bless the hearts of the Democratic candidates competing in primaries this summer,” he continued. “I hope they resist the socialist direction their state and national party has taken in recent years.”
