Hempstead Supervisor Clavin not making any room at the top

Daily Point

D'Esposito not finding a landing spot at town hall

While Rep. Anthony D’Esposito hasn’t conceded to Democrat Laura Gillen, multiple sources tell The Point that the margin is insurmountable.

That would leave the question: What’s next for D’Esposito?

There were rumors Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin might become a judge, leaving the supervisor race up for grabs for D’Esposito in the event of a loss.

But Clavin himself put those rumors to bed Wednesday.

"I love what I do. It’s the greatest job in the world and yes, I’m running next year," Clavin told The Point. "Reelection started today."

Clavin said he never contemplated leaving the post.

"I love the people I work with in the town and I work with a town board that wants to work with me," Clavin said.

That’s likely even more true now that Republican Chris Schneider handily won his town council race against former Nassau County Legis. Kevan Abrahams, who had suggested he’d push back against Clavin. Schneider was appointed to the seat after the death of Chris Carini, leading to the special election. Now, the town council continues to be mostly Republican, save for Democrat Dorothy Goosby, who often votes with the Republican majority.

Clavin’s pledge to run again leaves open the question of what happens next for D’Esposito. On that, a D’Esposito spokesman declined to comment.

Other observers, meanwhile, have begun to wonder what former President Donald Trump’s win will mean for Rep. Lee Zeldin, one of Trump’s closest surrogates. During the Republican National Convention, where Zeldin had a prime speaking spot, Zeldin told The Point: "Whatever is next after November 5 is a decision-making process for after November 5."

Now that it’s after Nov. 5, has that decision-making process begun?

"Will let you know when we have more to add on that," a source with knowledge responded.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

Sealing the victory

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/1106electioncartoons

Final Point

Democratic support erodes in the state

While New York State may appear blue on the electoral map, the data tells a somewhat different story.

Vice President Kamala Harris won New York by 12 percentage points but four years ago President Joe Biden took the state by 23 percentage points.

In 2008, 2012 and 2016, New York went blue by more than 20 percentage points each time. More telling, President-elect Donald Trump grew his New York voting base by almost 200,000 votes in 2024 compared with his 2020 showing. Harris, meanwhile, received nearly 1 million fewer votes statewide than Biden did.

Those numbers will change a bit as the data is finalized and absentee ballots are counted, but the story will remain the same.

Long Island, meanwhile, grew even redder, as both Nassau and Suffolk counties broke for Trump, by 5 percentage points and 11 percentage points, respectively. Here, too, however, the discrepancy came in part because of a lower turnout for Harris, as opposed to a higher turnout for Trump. Harris received more than 74,000 fewer votes than Biden in Nassau, whereas Trump’s vote grew by just under 30,000.

In Suffolk, Trump’s vote total grew by more than 21,000, while Harris received nearly 60,000 fewer votes than Biden.

Put into historical context, the 11-point spread for Trump in Suffolk this year compares with a tiny victory in 2020, when Suffolk chose Trump over Biden by only a couple hundred votes, and to the 7-percentage point spread that separated Trump from Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In the presidential elections before that, in 2004, 2008 and 2012, Suffolk was blue.

Nassau, meanwhile, remained various shades of blue in every presidential race for the last three decades. In the last five contests, Democrats hit a high when Biden beat Trump by more than 9 percentage points in 2020.

That all changed Tuesday night, when Trump won Nassau by 5 percentage points, allowing Nassau to join its neighbor to the east in the red corner of the state’s map.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

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