Syracuse, NY - As Phil LaTessa headed for last week’s primary election, his strategist thought at least 8,000 people would vote and he would remain the Democrat on the November ballot for 119th District Assembly seat. That’s not what happened. In the last days of the campaign, challenger Sam Roberts mobilized volunteers, loaned his campaign another $25,000 and told voters...
Syracuse, NY - As Phil LaTessa headed for last week’s primary election, his strategist thought at least 8,000 people would vote and he would remain the Democrat on the November ballot for 119th District Assembly seat.
That’s not what happened.
In the last days of the campaign, challenger Sam Roberts mobilized volunteers, loaned his campaign another $25,000 and told voters that there was something fishy about LaTessa’s fundraising.
Roberts, a former county legislator, won 45 percent of about 4,600 votes cast to win the ballot spot, according to unofficial results.: ]
The challenge was to find those likely voters in a district of 35,659 enrolled Democrats, win their support and motivate them to vote in a primary election with little else on the ballot.
Assemblywoman Joan Christensen announced in January that she would not seek re-election to the seat she has held for 20 years. Jane Fahey-Suddaby was the first candidate to announce that she would run, even before Christensen stepped out. Roberts said he had always planned to run when Christensen retired. But LaTessa, the Syracuse city auditor since 2003, won the party’s designation in May.
That set up a three-way Democratic primary in a district so lopsided for Democrats that the primary threatened to be more exciting than the general election.
LaTessa raised the most money. He made a personal loan of $72,600 to the campaign and held two fundraisers, one an annual event at his home. The biggest donations came from lawyers and people in real estate.
LaTessa, 49, owns appraisal, abstract and property management companies.
As he talked with voters, LaTessa said he encountered a new kind of apathy. People were beyond angry about Albany politics, LaTessa said, they were disgusted.
“It was ‘Why would you want to?’ not ‘why are you running?’” he said.
Suddaby, 54, went door to door with no support from unions or the party establishment. She is an assistant superintendent at Oswego County BOCES and has never held public office, but belongs to a family of judges.
Roberts said it was his strategy to make his opponents think he was broke until the end. Like a boxer, he said, he wanted to come out swinging in the last rounds.
“I’m a very competitive person and I understand how it’s played,” he said.
In the last weeks, union members, ministers, old friends and stalwarts of the powerhouse East Side 17th Ward hit the streets for Roberts.
Roberts printed a flyer that said LaTessa was doing the heavy lifting for shopping mall developer Bob Congel. Another one implied LaTessa was hiding donations from Congel. In Roberts’ opinion, the mailings weren’t negative. They simply provided information. “It was news,” he said.
But LaTessa saw them as unfair stretches of the truth. He had not taken money from Congel for this election, but from Carousel Center partner Bruce Kenan and, the week before the election, $2,500 from the political action committee for the law firm that represents the Carousel Center. Congel has donated $1,550 to LaTessa’s campaign for city auditor.
Christensen, who tried to stay neutral, wrote a letter that said she was disappointed in the attack ads.
“If Albany is ever going to have a chance to reform, we must elect people who will act in the best interest of those they serve and not the self-interest of their own ambitions,” she wrote, without naming names.
Roberts said four mailers cost his campaign about $4,300 each. On Sept. 3, Roberts loaned $25,000 of his personal savings to the campaign, bringing his total to $40,000.
In the end, half as many people came to the polls as LaTessa expected and voters in the suburbs stayed home. Some polling places in DeWitt had no voters. Suddaby and LaTessa split wins in the suburbs. Suddaby took the most votes in DeWitt and Onondaga, and LaTessa won Salina.
But there was excitement for Roberts in Syracuse.
If Roberts wins in November, he will be the first African-American to represent Central New York in Albany.
In the 17th Wardwhere he lives, Roberts led LaTessa by 428 votes and Suddaby by 618.
In the 18th Ward, home to many black voters, Roberts won 107 votes compared to six for LaTessa and five for Suddaby. So many people came to vote at Danforth Magnet School and Almus Olver Towers that the board of elections had to bring more ballots, Democratic Elections Commissioner Ed Ryan said. Dozens of emergency ballots will not be counted until Friday.
Roberts, 54, served five terms on the Onondaga County Legislature, from 1990 to 1999. Since then, his political work can be measured more in miles than titles. He has campaigned behind the scenes for candidates, was chairman of the 17th Ward and worked for the state party.
During Hillary Clinton’s run for president, he was tapped to mobilize voters in Indiana and Kentucky.
Roberts retired from GM after 30 years and, in 2007, was appointed by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer to work as building superintendent for the state offices in Syracuse. In June, he took a leave of absence from the $73,000-a-year job to run for office.
His leave of absence ends Nov. 3, the day after the general election. But Roberts says he plans to leave that job for the Assembly, which pays $79,500 a year.
In the Nov. 2 general election, Roberts will face John Sharon on the Republican and Independence Party lines and Conservative Party candidate Christina Fitch.
Contact Michelle Breidenbach at mbreidenbach@syracuse.com or 315-470-3186.