Copyright syracuse.com
Syracuse, N.Y. — The size of Tuesday’s blue wave in Central New York, like across the nation, caught almost everyone by surprise. It swelled so large here that it swept in candidates up and down the ballot, from state supreme court justices to local highway superintendents to a neighborhood leader running on a third-party line. Onondaga County’s legislature flipped to blue for the first time in nearly 50 years. Salina’s town board is now all blue. Some cast votes in protest of President Donald Trump’s policies and Congress’s inactions. But they also told local candidates they wanted something different, leaders and public officials who tackled challenges that so many are facing in their daily lives. Paying bills. Finding affordable housing. Stretching local tax dollars to do more for the people who are providing them. “This town always goes Republican,“ voters told Ellen Magnarelli-Terrien, an East Syracuse school teacher who ran for Onondaga Town Board, as she went door-to-door. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” she’d say back. Turned out, she was right. Magnarelli-Terrien is the first Democratic board member elected in Onondaga in 40 years. Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard talked with five candidates who won Tuesday night. Some said they had hints along the campaign trail that voters might be on their side. Some said voters wanted to talk about local concerns as much as national angst. But the overwhelming support for local Democrats surprised them all. Here are a few of our new local leaders: Raul Huerta When Raul Huerta canvased for votes in Salina’s supervisor race, he wore a black hat that said “Make Lying Wrong Again.” It got people talking, he said. Especially people not enrolled as a Democrat or Republican. But often what they wanted to talk about were local issues. A town pool that closed. Roads that needed fixed. “People are trying to make ends meet,” he said. Huerta, 75, decided to challenge Republican Nick Paro to try to address some of those local and personal issues, he said. He knew he was an underdog in the race against Paro, who was going for his third term. Huerta has only lived in Salina four years. “Everyone, including my wife, thought I was crazy to run,” he said. He campaigned on trying to put more businesses in Mattydale. He wants people to be able to walk into Salina Town Hall and talk to the supervisor, without an appointment. He wants to decrease the salary of the leader of Onondaga County’s third-largest town. He, like many other Democrats across the region and nation, won handily: 3,597 to 2,637. He funded about three-quarters of his campaign, which raised about $10,000. He also got $2,000 from U.S. Rep. John Mannion. Huerta said he came from a family interested in politics. He grew up in New Mexico and moved to Central New York in the mid-1980s. He’s retired now after directing a program at SUNY Morrisville for international students. He speaks Spanish and Japanese, he said. Now that he’s won, he says he wants to hear more from residents about what they want. That includes how to invigorate local businesses that will employ local people. “We need to invest in local businesses and local people who will work there so the money circulates in our community,” he said. — Elizabeth Doran Nicole Watts Nicole Watts has preached about affordability and other Democratic priorities for years. But it was a scramble by Democrats a few months ago that put her on the ballot, and in an odd way. Instead of running as a Democrat in a Syracuse-based district for Onondaga County Legislature, Watts ran on the Working Families line. In most cases, that would doom a candidate. But Watts had three things going for her. The Democratic line remained empty because Democratic incumbent Palmer Harvey was disqualified from the ballot. Watts, a Virginia native and a trained preacher, had immersed herself in the city’s North Side. And she had the blue wave. Watts credits her mission of community building for her win Tuesday. But it wasn’t until election night that she realized she might win. “I started getting reports of story after story of folks showing up, bringing their friends and family to the polls,” Watts told syracuse.com. The voters showed up for her, like she has showed up for so many of them. During Covid, her non-profit Hopeprint knocked on 300 doors to find out what families needed. For years, she’s sat at their kitchen tables and in their backyards. She says she believes government can do more for them without spending more money. She points to efforts to improve housing as an example of a system that is often inefficient and fragmented between city and county governments. Same goes for issues like housing and food security. Even when thinking about countywide issues, like Micron Technology’s arrival, Watts said she’d balance the regional impact with how it would impact her neighborhood. Now, with a seat on the Legislature and with Democrats in power, she’s got the chance to put those ideas in motion. “I’ve had amazing conversations,” she said. “It’s a dauting lift. How do we make this happen?” — Douglass Dowty Ken Stoneburg Democrat Ken Stoneburg got hints of people’s feelings about the current state of Washington politics as he knocked on doors in Camillus and asked voters to rely on him to care for the town’s roads. “I’m big into accountability, and I think we’ve been experiencing on the national level a lack of accountability, and people are just tired of it,” he said. Instead of wanting to talk about issues like snow plowing, they talked about their dislike for Trump and his policies toward immigrants and his failure to bring down grocery prices, he said. “I think there’s a general feeling of disgust,” he said. “The lack of integrity and behavior, you know, saying one thing and doing another.” Stoneburg, 63, has 40 years of experience as a home remodeler. In 2016, he started Ken Stoneburg Creative in the Delavan art studios in Syracuse, where he makes custom epoxy countertops, shower surrounds and tables. He said he did not expect to see voter dissatisfaction with Trump play out so strongly in this year’s local elections, including his own for highway superintendent in Camillus. He said he thought he would see the blue wave in next year’s mid-term elections instead. Clearly, lots of voters didn’t wait that long. On Tuesday, Stoneburg defeated 10-year incumbent Paul Legnetto, a Republican, 3,265 to 2,814. Four years ago, the outcome was different. Stoneburg lost to Legnetto in his first run for the position in 2021. “I think people are finally pulling the wool off their eyes, starting to say this can’t happen anymore,” he said. People aren’t willing to let political rhetoric keep slipping into locker room behavior, he said. “It’s not acceptable anymore,” he said. — Rick Moriarty Ellen Magnarelli-Terrien The last time a Democrat was elected to the town board in Onondaga, Ellen Magnarelli-Terrien was 1 year old. Magnerelli-Terrien, 41, ended that drought as part of Onondaga County’s blue wave, becoming the first Democratic town board member since 1985. To get there, she says, she knocked on close to 1,000 doors in a town with about 17,000 voters. Canvassing is in her DNA. She started when she was 7. Even political novices in Syracuse could guess why: Her uncle is long-time Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli, a Democrat from Syracuse, and her family has long been involved in local politics. With that experience, Magnerelli-Terrien said, she spent a lot of time listening to voters on front stoops. They talked about their worries over well water and neighborhood flooding. Some said those living farther from Onondaga Hill felt cut off from the town’s decisions, while others thought the town’s newer, pricier neighborhoods were driving up housing costs. And on their own, she said, some also brought up national concerns, like increasing immigration raids and decreasing SNAP benefits. Occasionally, she’d hear “Good luck.” As in good luck being a Democrat in a Republican town. But it’s not. The enrollment is almost split equally among Democrats, Republicans and independents, with Democrats technically ahead. Still, the board has remained solidly Republican for decades. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” she’d tell voters. Magnerelli-Terrien, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security employee and now an English as a New Language teacher at East Syracuse Elementary School, said she believes her education and government experience may have contributed to her unexpected victory. “It does show that people aren’t satisfied with the way things are being done in our country right now and in our government,” Magnarelli-Terrien said. “Even if we can’t necessarily do anything on the state and federal level, it feels amazing to be able to go out and knock doors to be able to do something about it.” — Julia Boehning Gregg Eriksen Skaneateles Democrat Gregg Eriksen recognizes that his win over a three-term GOP incumbent county legislator came on a night when his party had success everywhere. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m a giant political genius,” said Eriksen, who defeated Republican incumbent Julie Abbott in the 6th District, which includes all of Skaneateles, Marcellus, Spafford and part of Camillus. But after serving eight years on the Skaneateles Village Board and working in the Democratic committee, he’s no novice. He’s learned how to listen to voters and latch onto their worries. That meant taking issues like affordability seriously, he said. “I can’t tell you how many people told me they are looking for that,” said Eriksen, who grew up in the Hudson Valley and is now a lawyer in Syracuse. “I talked to so many voters who told me their kids want to move back home but can’t affordable housing.” And it didn’t hurt that many people, including Eriksen, see the county’s $100 million Inner Harbor aquarium as a symbol of the lack of reality in people’s rising grocery, property tax and utility bills. “People are struggling to get through the week, struggling to find affordable housing,” Eriksen said. “These are people with good jobs and good work ethic and they’re wondering: ‘Why is the county burning $100 million on an aquarium when we could have tax breaks and other more worthwhile spending.’” But beating Abbott, a former television reporter who also served for years on the Skaneateles school board, by 3 points was a feat even seasoned Democrats didn’t see coming. The district has 1,000 more Republicans than Democrats. “I think we had a good message,” he said, noting that Abbott is a good opponent running in a tough district for Dems. “But I’m not totally surprised,” he added. — Don Cazentre
