Republican Tague looks like winner of special election

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Christopher Tague in August 2016.

102ND ASSEMBLY DISTRICT — Republican Christopher Tague appears to have won the special election to fill the 102nd Assembly District Tuesday, edging out Democrat Aiden S. O’Connor Jr. by 288 votes.

After all 126 precincts reported for the sprawling district that stretches from Schoharie County to the mid-Hudson Valley, Tague captured 45.87 percent of the vote with 8,547. O’Connor came in second with 44.32 percent of the vote with 8,259.

In third place was Wesley Laraway, a registered Republican who ran on the Best Choice Candidate line.

Laraway captured 9.71 percent of the vote, 1,809 total votes, helping to contribute to the closeness of the race in what is normally a Republican dominated assembly district.

Tague said he wasn’t surprised the race was this close.

“I think in a special election, you can never know what’s going to happen. My competitors both worked just as hard as I did, and it all came down to who got the most people out to vote.

Tague, the Schoharie town supervisor, won his home territory of Schoharie County with 2,383 votes, 43.68 percent of the total vote, beating O’Connor who had 28.54 percent of the vote. Laraway who took in 27.63 of the vote.

O’Connor won the Albany, Ulster and Delaware counties portions of the district, but Tague won in Green, Columbia County and Ostsego counties.

Tague will now fill the seat formerly held by Republican Pete Lopez, who left to become regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The seat, which has a salary of $79,500, has been vacant since Lopez departed, leaving residents without a representative during this year’s state legislative session.