4 key election takeaways: Rochester-area voting insights from the D&C reporting team

Tuesday's elections brought Democratic control to Monroe County government for the first time in more than three decades, part of a resoundingly successful night for local Democrats.

Democratic County Executive Adam Bello defeated Republican challenger Mark Assini by 20 points in unofficial results. He will be working with 16 Democrats in the Legislature compared to 13 Republicans.

Here are some main takeaways from Election Night.

Democrats take Monroe County Legislature

This is the most significant result from Tuesday's elections — and it was far from assured going into the day.

Democrats emerged from the primaries with an expected 15-14 majority. To reverse that, Republicans needed to flip one seat, with the 16th District in Irondequoit the most likely candidate.

The incumbent there, Dave Long, defeated Joe Carbone in 2021, but Carbone was back for a rematch and outraised Long by a wide margin.

Nonetheless, Long won a convincing victory by about 11 points. And he was joined by Lystra McCoy, a Democrat in Perinton who defeated incumbent Republican Sean Delehanty.

Together with the primary and general election victories of Rose Bonnick in the 27th District in the city of Rochester, Democrats will have a 16-13 edge in the county's governing body.

Democrats make gains in Monroe County towns

The same voters who elected Long in Irondequoit and McCoy in Perinton also had options in their local town races. There, too, they and other voters in towns around Monroe County opted often for Democrats.

• Democrat Andrae Evans defeated Republican Supervisor Rory Fitzpatrick in Irondequoit, reclaiming Bello's old job in the town.

• Republicans held onto other contested supervisor positions, including in Penfield. But Democrats gained town board seats in Henrietta, Irondequoit, Penfield, Perinton and Pittsford.

"There's a message that is resonating throughout the country," Evans said Tuesday night. "We are all in this together; we are all hand in hand. We are not standing on one side or the other; we are building a nation for our nation."

Election results: Find out who won in Monroe County

Local judicial races plus an unlikely candidate almost won

A Democrat and Republican appear to be the winners for Monroe County Family Court judgeship, but the surprising if not shocking results were the Democratic votes for state Supreme Court.

In that race, the Democratic candidate lives more than 300 miles away, did not campaign, and by all accounts had no interest in the job. In fact, she dropped out of a local race in Suffolk County after a stroke.

The candidate, Margot Garant, appeared unlikely to win the judicial race based on vote tallies around midnight but what was stunning was how close she was in a contest in an eight-county judicial district known to typically be a GOP stronghold.

The two leading vote-getters, with some districts still unreported, were incumbent judge Alex Renzi and Joe Waldorf.

Renzi and Waldorf are Republicans and Waldorf is the principal court attorney to state Supreme Court Justice William Taylor.

• While Garant was on the ballot, she was there because of the need to get her name off of a local election ballot in Suffolk County. Health problems prompted her to leave the race, but there were limited ways by which her name could be removed from the ballot.

• One way was to run for a state Supreme Court judgeship. Garant is an attorney and candidates from outside of judicial districts can run for state Supreme Court.

• Garant actually received more votes in Monroe County than Waldorf, according to unofficial results.

In the Monroe County Family Court race, the top vote-getters according to unofficial results were incumbent judge Maria Cubillos Reed, a Democrat, and local lawyer Kristine Demo-Vazquez, a Republican.

Republicans project confidence; Assini hints at retirement

Even on a night of clear defeats across the board, Republican leaders expressed confidence in their party’s direction going forward.

Longtime state senator and party leader Joe Robach, now out of office, issued a pre-emptive warning about Democrats’ single-party rule over the county.

“I'll say it because I'm not running," he said. "I don't care who won or lost, you can't change this fact: one-party control has got us into the conditions and the mess that we're in."

Robach did not clarify which actions in the last generation of Republican control he was faulting. But he added that voters are bound to return to the Republican flock over issues like bail reform and criminal justice. Several speakers Tuesday night referred to the Republican party as “the party of public safety.”

The party likely will need to find a new top candidate. Assini, who earned bipartisan respect as Gates town supervisor, has now lost three consecutive high-profile elections: twice to Louise Slaughter for Congress and now to Bello for county executive.

Robach called Assini someone who "was always willing to carry the banner" of the Republican party. But on Tuesday night Assini hinted he may be stepping away from the political spotlight.

"I don't think we're going to do anything for a while," he told his wife, Mary Ann, on stage, thanking her for her patience throughout his career. "I think we'll focus on us."

— Rob Bell and Kayla Canne contributed reporting for this article.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: What we learned: Vital Rochester, Monroe County NY elections takeaways