She was endorsed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni, Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker, by the New York League of Conservation Voters, by the Working Families Party, and by three of four East Hampton Town Board members, and on Tuesday night, Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez won the endorsement of Democratic voters.
With over 62 percent of the vote, she defeated East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen to claim her role as Democratic candidate for town supervisor this November.
As the incumbent supported wholeheartedly by the Democratic establishment, her victory perhaps comes as no surprise. However, Mr. Larsen ran a tenacious campaign. He focused on the struggles at the Building Department and a number of town projects, including the stalled senior center, a pet project of Ms. Burke-Gonzalez. He also backed a full slate of challengers for the 38 seats on the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee, nine of whom appeared to have won, according to unofficial results from the Suffolk County Board of Elections.
"This was a grueling campaign," Ms. Burke-Gonzalez acknowledged in her victory speech at Rowdy Hall in Amagansett.
Despite Mr. Larsen's constant needling, the supervisor stayed above the fray, refusing to go negative and attack the mayor. "We made a decision as a team to keep this positive and the voters responded to that," she said. "We have enough of that misinformation and nonsense and spin in Washington. We don't want that here," she said to whoops and hollers.
"The tally came in; we lost," Mr. Larsen said at Serafina in East Hampton, where he had gathered with his supporters and committee candidates. "It was a hard-fought campaign. I have to congratulate them for doing the job they did. But I'm proud of our committee. We picked up, it looks like maybe eight seats, so that was a win on that side of things. And we'll see what happens in the future."
Mr. Larsen has two more years in his term as village mayor.
"Obviously, our town has, I still feel there's a lot of mismanagement going on. But I think that the Democratic Committee has such a strong hold on the second-home owners and people who live here that, when they come out as the official Democratic Committee and they endorse somebody, it carries a lot of weight. It's very clear. So I think nothing's going to change with that."
Of his committee nominees, his wife, Lisa Larsen, and his deputy mayor, Chris Minardi, both appear to have won, as did Jenny Lilja Baladron, the wife of the village administrator, Marcos Baladron; Mr. Minardi's wife, Sarah Minardi; Francis Bock, an East Hampton Town trustee; David Gruber, a former committee chairman and unsuccessful candidate for supervisor; Kelly Anderson, Vicki Littman, and Jackie Dunphy.
