Two weeks after the heavily contested Democratic primary election, absentee and early mail ballots have been counted, and the results have been finalized. Spoiler alert: They’ve barely changed since election night.
Official results show that Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez beat East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen convincingly, with 61.7 percent, or 2,114 of the 3,426 votes cast. Mr. Larsen received 38.3 percent of the vote, or 1,312 votes. On election night, the unofficial totals were 2,054 and 1,245 respectively.
The only race whose outcome changed in the final tally was a committee election in District 1 in East Hampton. On election night, it appeared Pamela Moss and Anthony Martone, both candidates supported by the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee, were victorious. Official results show that Barbara Layton, who supported Mr. Larsen, pulled ahead of Mr. Martone to win a spot on the 38-person committee.
While the Suffolk County Board of Elections website has not been updated since June 24, the official results were shared by Anna Skrenta, the chairwoman of the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee, in a press release. Ms. Skrenta said the committee had received a Tuesday morning email with the final tallies from the Democratic commissioner at the board of elections.
A unique feature of this year’s campaign was that nearly all of the 38 Democratic Committee seats were challenged by a slate produced by Mr. Larsen (Francis Bock was cross-endorsed but supported Mr. Larsen). The large majority of the 38 seats, 29, were won by candidates supported by the East Hampton Democratic Committee. Nine of Mr. Larsen’s candidates won (10 if you include Mr. Bock).
The way it works, each of the town’s 19 election districts is represented by two committee members. At the convention each is allotted the number of votes equal to half of the Democratic votes cast in their election district for the Democratic candidate in the last gubernatorial election. The most powerful districts based on that metric are 2, which runs into Sag Harbor, 8 in East Hampton, and 16 in Northwest.
So, while Ms. Burke-Gonzalez’s slate won the majority of the races, Mr. Larsen’s slate picked up a couple of key victories. For example, Sarah Minardi won in District 16, which carries a good amount of power at the Democratic conventions. David Gruber won in District 8.
In another pickup, Mr. Larsen’s wife, Lisa, beat out Ms. Burke-Gonzalez’s husband, Joe, in District 5.
“I consider this a huge win for our campaign,” Mr. Larsen said in a text. “We knew we would not win it all but I consider 10 seats (Bock was clearly our candidate) a good start. We will see you again in 2028.”
“While the result wasn’t what we hoped for, this campaign was always about something bigger than one election. It was about bringing new energy, new ideas, and greater accountability to our community,” Mr. Larsen said.
According to the Democratic Committee press release, under New York State Election Law, any race decided by less than 20 votes receives a mandatory recount. Recounts were conducted in Election Districts 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, and 17 yesterday at the Suffolk County Board of Elections in Yaphank. Recounts were not anticipated to shift any race.
“I couldn’t be prouder of this team and of the positive campaign we ran,” said Ms. Skrenta in the press release. “The committee members are colleagues and friends and I’m happy to see 29 of them elected today. At the same time, I welcome the nine newly elected committee members from Jerry Larsen’s slate, and I hope they’re ready to roll up their sleeves because the months and years ahead will require all of us to work together.”
“There’s no time to waste,” she continued. “We’ll be working hard to support Governor Hochul and our Democratic candidate for Congress, Chris Gallant, in the 2026 midterms, and right here at home, East Hampton will have its own town elections again in both 2027 and 2028. Local Democratic committee members are the worker bees of democracy, and right now, our democracy is under threat from President Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress. Our work to support Democratic candidates and ideals has never been more important.”
The Democratic Committee proposes candidates for town offices and collects signatures for the petitions required to enable local, state, and national candidates to run for office.
Last week, The Star was first to report on the formation of an independent expenditure committee that has launched a write-in campaign for Mr. Larsen in this fall’s supervisor race. While he failed to win the Democratic primary, he may still be written in. A story about this effort appears elsewhere in today’s paper.
“I’m especially proud that 10 of our Democratic Committee candidates were elected,” Mr. Larsen said. “Challenging an established organization is never easy, and these victories represent an important first step toward building a stronger, more open, and more representative Democratic Party in East Hampton. This is not the end. It’s the beginning.”
“While the East Hampton Democratic Committee is celebrating its primary results, the numbers tell a different story,” said Jacki Esposito, a founder of the write-in campaign.
“The Democratic Committee’s claim of a sweeping mandate simply does not reflect the broader electorate,” Mary Waserstein, another of the write-in campaign organizers, said.
There are approximately 21,000 registered voters in East Hampton Town, 10,000 of them registered Democrats, about 4,000 Republicans, and roughly 6,000 unaffiliated.
