Voters re-elected New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a Democrat, to his second full term Tuesday, signaling confidence in the fiscal watchdog who beat Republican challenger Robert Antonacci, the Onondaga County comptroller.
The 60-year-old Great Neck Plaza resident won 56-percent of the vote over Antonacci, 49, who came home with 34 percent, according to unofficial results from the state Board of Elections.
The incumbent also ran on the Working Families, Womens Equality and Independence party lines while Antonacci additionally secured the Conservative and Stop Common Core party lines.
DiNapoli, a former state Assemblyman who began his political career when he was elected as a trustee to the Mineola Board of Education at the age of 18, became state comptroller in 2007 after being appointed to serve out the term of Alan Hevesi, who resigned and pleaded guilty to corruption charges. The job entails analyzing and reporting on the state’s $140 billion budget, overseeing the state’s $177 billion public pension fund and routine audits of local municipalities such as school districts and fire departments around the state.
Antonacci, an attorney and certified public accountant who has been the comptroller of Onondaga County since 2007, Antonacci said the state comptroller should also be auditing the state Legislature and the executive chamber. He had proposed a five-point plan that he says would ensure the state’s pension fund remains viable by restructuring its management, reducing operational costs and reducing costs to local governments.
He was the lone participant in the state’s publicly financed campaign pilot program, but didn’t raise enough campaign cash to qualify for matching funds. DiNapoli is a longtime supporter of publicly financed campaigns, but he opted out of state Legislature’s experiment this year on the grounds that the version was flawed. The pilot program was launched in the middle of campaign season and only applied to the state comptroller’s race.
