Elaine Phillips, the Republican candidate for the state Senate’s 7th District seat, announced last Thursday that she had received the Conservative Party’s nomination for the race.
“I would like to thank the Conservative Party for nominating me to run on their ballot line in November,” Phillips said in a statement.
She announced May 19 that she will run for state Sen. Jack Martins’ 7th district seat after she was nominated by the Nassau County Republican Party.
Martins filed FEC papers in January to create a campaign committee to run for the 3rd Congressional district’s seat just two days after U.S. Rep. Steve Israel announced he would step down at the end of his term in November.
The Old Westbury resident and former Mineola mayor had been considering a congressional run for several months and began discussing it more seriously after Israel’s announcement, campaign strategist E. O’Brien Murray said.
Phillips was elected to a third term as mayor of Flower Hill in March.
Democrat Adam Haber announced in February he was stepping down from the Nassau Interim Finance Authority board to make a second bid for the state Senate’s 7th District seat.
The Conservative Party has played a key role in elections in the past.
In November, four of the Surrogate and County Court races were decided by which candidate received more votes on the Conservative line.
In the Surrogate Court race, Republican Margaret C. Reilly defeated Democratic candidate Angela G. Iannacci with about 52 percent of the votes.
Iannacci received more votes on the Democratic line, 83,420, than Reilly received on the Republican line, 78,213.
But Reilly, who also ran on the Independence and Reform party lines, received 15,563 votes on the Conservative line — enough to offset Iannacci’s lead and win the race.
Iannacci also ran on the Working Families, Green and Women’s Equality party lines, but did not receive enough support on those lines to combat the Conservative Party’s strong turnout.
The race for three seats on the County Court bench showed similar outcomes.
The three Democratic candidates — Tammy S. Robbins, Steven M. Jaeger and N. Scott Banks — got more votes on the Democratic line, receiving 82,960, 83,009 and 78,956 votes, respectively.
But they lost the race to Robert G. Bogle, Felice J. Muraca and Howard E. Sturim, who received 77,283, 76,018 and 76,202 on the Republican line, respectively.
Bogle, Muraca and Sturim each received about 16,500 votes on the Conservative line — enough to make up the difference with the three Democrats, who were also running on the Working Families, Green and Women’s Equality lines.
Efforts to reach Nassau County Republican Party Chairman Joe Mondello and Nassau County Conservative Party Chairman Daniel F. Donovan, Jr. were unavailing.
State Senate Democratic spokesman Michael Murphy criticized the Conservative Party’s nomination.
“The Conservative Party is the party that has wholeheartedly supported Donald Trump and his extremist and dangerous views,” Murphy said. “They have supported the corrupt Republican machine of Dean Skelos and have been against all smart reforms to clean up Albany.”
“They are the party that wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and wants to take away rights from women,” he added. “Anyone that accepts their support disqualifies themselves from office.”
Since losing to Martins in 2014, Haber, an East Hills restaurateur and former bond trader, said he has developed greater name recognition from his work on the NIFA board and as a Roslyn school trustee, which would give him an advantage in the race.
Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs also said that name recognition would benefit Haber in the race.
“Familiarity with the voters is an important advantage,” Jacobs said.
