Politics & Government

Walter Defeats Cardinale to Win Second-Straight Term

The Republican incumbent secures re-election as Riverhead town supervisor with 62 percent of the vote. Cardinale concedes.

Town Supervisor Sean Walter once again beat Democratic challenger Phil Cardinale, securing a second term on Tuesday.

Walter scored 4,664 votes to Cardinale's 2,630 with all precincts reporting, according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

Long-shot third-party candidate Greg Fischer picked up 211 votes.

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Staffers for the Republican party cheered and popped open champagne as the initial results came in. The candidates held a broom, signifying their "sweep" of the Democratic candidates, as Walter credited his positive message and God for his win in a speech declaring victory.

"A positive message wins," Walter said. "If you take anything from this election, if you look at what the Democrats did, if you look at what the civics did … calling us names, throwing mud, stealing  signs, you realize the negative doesn't work. You cannot build this town up by tearing it down."

Find out what's happening in Riverheadwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In a concession speech, Cardinale said the Democratic party must stay positive and on message.

"As a party, we're right," Cardinale said. "We're right to think that government can still be part of the solution. And we're right to believe that a community as well as the nation is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. And on those standards, our opposition must fail."

The contentious race saw both Cardinale and Walter  and blaming their opponent for not doing enough to improve the town.

 In the 2009 general election, Walter defeated Cardinale by 249 votes according to the Suffolk County Board of Elections. In that election, Republicans claimed all five Town Board seats.


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