Primary winners cite clean campaigns

Several winners of the recent Republican primaries touted clean campaigns as the reason for their success.
Eric Ulrich, who won the State Committee, Assembly District 23 District Leader seat in south Queens, said that he believed voters turned out to support candidates with a positive message.
“Everyone in politics thinks that you have to rip your opponent up to win,” Ulrich said, “but I think this proves that this is not the case.”
Ozone Park resident Ulrich, who ran with Breezy Point resident Jane Deacy, took about 60 percent of the preliminary vote over opponents John Calcagnile and Denise Walsh, both of Howard Beach.
“In retrospect, talking to people from Rockaway, from Howard Beach and Ozone Park, people were just excited and they were ready for change,” Ulrich said of the election in Assemblymember Audrey Pheffer’s district.
New York City Board of Elections spokesperson Valerie Vasquez said that the official count of District 23 votes had not been tallied.
“The Republican party is sick of being just token opposition,” Ulrich said, explaining why voters cast a ballot for him and his running mate. He added, “I’m a fighter. I consider myself to be very honest, which sometimes can come off very blunt … But at the end of the day, [voters] respect that because they elected me.”
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown ran uncontested.
Councilmember Dennis Gallagher, who was charged with raping a woman earlier this year, had also thrown his hat into the ring for one of three District 28 Judicial Convention seats, but he reportedly received the lowest number of votes out of five candidates, according to the preliminary results.
Gallagher also ran for a County Committee spot, but the result of his race along with races in five other Assembly Districts, were not available from the city’s Board of Elections as of Tuesday, September 25.