While District Attorney-elect Madeline Singas carried all three Nassau County towns in last Tuesday’s election, Board of Elections data show North Hempstead was her biggest Democratic stronghold.
While turnout was only about 20 percent, the lowest since 2011, Singas won the town by an 24-percent margin, getting 62 percent of the vote to Republican Kate Murray’s 38 percent.
Within the town, Singas found her biggest pockets of support in parts of Great Neck, Garden City Park, Roslyn, Plandome Manor, Port Washington, Old Westbury and New Cassel.
Singas won by a margin of more than 50 percent in 50 election districts in those areas, including all of the villages of Thomaston, Great Neck Plaza, Great Neck Gardens, Plandome Manor, Roslyn Harbor and Roslyn Estates.
Singas, a resident of Manhasset, had margins of victory between 35 and 45 percent in the areas surrounding these deeply Democratic parts, including most of the Great Neck and Cow’s Neck peninsulas and a broad strip of the town stretching from Lake Success to New Cassel.
Her biggest margin — 86.5 percent — came in a district in New Cassel, where she won 307 of the 333 votes to Murray’s 19.
These numbers are typical for North Hempstead, Nassau Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs said.
The town is generally an easy win for Democratic candidates, particularly given its large population of highly educated voters, he said.
“They were the ones that were most attracted to the ‘prosecutor, not a politician’ argument, and playing that again and again, I think particularly with the people in North Hempstead … that resonated,” Jacobs said.
The race pitted Singas, a 24-year prosecutor who was not a known public figure until she took the helm of the DA’s office in January, against Murray, an established Nassau Republican who served 12 years as Hempstead’s Town Supervisor.
The candidates battled often over their qualifications and approaches to tackling political corruption and heroin-related deaths.
Singas coupled criticisms of Murray’s lack of criminal law experience with vows to take down corrupt officials in the county in the wake of federal indictments against state Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and Assemblyman Sheldon Silver (D-Lower Manhattan).
Murray admitted she was not a prosecutor, but countered that she would manage the DA’s office more effectively and be tougher on drug dealers than Singas.
Murray won 20 of North Hempstead’s 205 districts. She carried one in Carle Place by about 20 percent, her largest margin of victory in the town.
Along with parts of the Willistons and Mineola, Carle Place was in one of Murray’s four main pockets of support. The others were Saddle Rock in Great Neck, a portion of Manhasset bordering Munsey Park, and northern portions of New Hyde Park.
She fared better in Hempstead, which leans Republican and where Murray was an established name. Singas had a narrower margin of victory there, with 55 percent of votes to Murray’s 45 percent.
Murray, who lives in Levittown, was most dominant in Garden City, Franklin Square, Malverne, East Rockaway, Island Park, Seaford and her hometown of Levittown.
She won most of the Five Towns in Hempstead’s southwest corner, carrying Lawrence, Inwood, Cedarhurst and a portion of Woodmere.
But Singas took most of Hewlett and all of Hewlett Neck, Hewlett Bay Park and Hewlett Harbor.
In no election district did Murray achieve as large a margin of victory as Singas won in her strongest districts.
She won only two districts by more 50 percent of the votes in the county, one in Lawrence that cast 209 votes and one in Hewlett that cast 10.
She won eight of the votes in the latter, and the former favored her by a 59-percent margin, 161 votes to Singas’ 39.
Singas’ Hempstead strongholds were Elmont, most of Valley Stream, Hempstead village, East Garden City, Uniondale, Baldwin, Freeport, Lakeview and Roosevelt.
While Hempstead voters had a level of “affection” for Murray as a familiar figure, Jacobs said, Singas’ message resonated with many Republicans there.
“What we found was that voters Republican voters in Hempstead would continuously say that if Kate was running for supervisor again then (they’d) vote for her, but she just isn’t qualified to do the job,” Jacobs said.
Nassau Republican Party Chairman Joe Mondello could not be reached for comment.
