The race for the 109th Assembly District is too close to call as unofficial results have the candidates within 577 votes of each other, but Assemblyman Bob Reilly was already declaring victory on election night.
I think the results are now conclusive, Reilly, D-Colonie said. `There’s 2,000 absentees that have been sent back and 2,700 were sent out, but they usually follow the voting pattern of the regular votes.`
With all districts reporting, incumbent Democrat Robert Reilly leads Republican challenger Jennifer Whalen 25,151 votes to 24,574.
As this election is set to go to absentee ballot counts, Republican challenger Jennifer Whalen said she is not about to give up.
`I am close. I think that we have to wait and see [about the] absentee ballots. We’ve got to go over them and have them counted and make sure that they’re all accounted for,` Jennifer Whalen told The Spotlight. `We’re hopeful that I can pull it off. I’m not giving up until every envelope has been opened and accounted for. I worked really hard on this campaign and I deserve to win. It’s not over ’til it’s over, and it’s not over.`
Still, Reilly said he was proud of his `positive` campaign and that he didn’t focus on his opponent.
`I found the campaign stressful,` he said. `I find candidates are more sensitive than other people about things that are said during the course of the campaign. Yeah, it’s stressful but I enjoy the competition of a campaign.`
The anti-incumbency wave did worry Reilly as he said it certainly affected his campaign and said he understood the sentiment but did not agree with it. He said the voters sent a message that the government must be cleaned up.
`I think every person that was elected, hopefully, heard a message loud and clear: ‘We want our government working for us,’` Reilly said. `And part of that is to clean up government. I believe we have to enter a period of shared sacrifice, but in order to enter that period of shared sacrifice and ask people to continue to contribute in that way, they have to believe it’s there. They cannot see people feeding at the public trough unfairly if in fact you are going to ask them to sacrifice and help rebuild our economy.“
