Defeats Democratic challenger at polls, 50-48
Sue Serino appears to have retained her state Senate seat on Nov. 6 representing District 41, which includes the Highlands, although about 10,000 absentee votes still must be counted. The district stretches along the east side of the Hudson River from Putnam Valley in the south to Saugerties in the north. The turnout approached 60 percent.
According to unofficial results posted by the New York Board of Elections, with all 238 precincts reporting, the incumbent, a Republican, received 2,146 more votes than her Democratic challenger, Karen Smythe, of more than 113,000 cast. Smythe would need to win about 70 percent of the absentee ballots to overtake Serino.
Serino received 56,462 votes, or 50 percent, while Smythe had 54,316 (48 percent). The remaining 2 percent of voters did not make a choice in the race.
Smythe, who lives in Red Hook, oversaw her family’s construction firm, C.B. Strain & Son, before becoming executive director of the Beatrix Farrand Garden Association in Hyde Park.
In a nearby Senate race, Republican incumbent Terrence Murphy, whose district includes eastern Putnam County, lost his seat to his Democratic challenger, Peter Harckham, 50-48. With absentee votes still to be counted, Harckham had received 2,121 more votes, among 115,000 cast.
