Democrats Hold NY State Senate Seat Trump Won In Landslide

Democrats held a heavily Orthodox Jewish New York state Senate seat in Tuesday’s special election as the party’s greater than two-to-one party registration advantage proved too much of a hurdle for the GOP to overcome.

Democrat Sam Sutton bested Republican Nachman Caller in the race to succeed former Democratic New York Sen. Simcha Felder, who resigned in April after being elected to his old seat on the New York City Council. Sutton was able to hold the district which President Donald Trump won with 77% of the vote in 2024, by capitalizing on the fact that his party had more than twice the number of registered active voters there than the GOP, according to the most recent enrollment data from the New York State Board of Elections.

Sutton won 67.6% of the vote to Caller’s 32.4%, with 90% of the vote in. Decision Desk HQ called the race for the Democrat at 9:28 p.m. EST, less than a half hour after polls closed. Sutton’s convincing win means the Democrats will hold 41 of the state Senate’s 63 seats, compared to the Republicans’ 22 — the same partisan breakdown of the chamber as after the 2024 election cycle.

New York State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris, a Queens Democrat, congratulated Sutton in a post on X and thanked him for “maintaining our historically large Senate majority.”