Democrats Take State Senate

Updated, 12:50 a.m., Nov. 5 | Bolstered by a surge of new voters, Democrats won a majority in the New York State Senate on Tuesday night, putting the party in control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office for the first time since the New Deal.

Democrats turned out in historic numbers from Buffalo to Long Island, overcoming a vaunted Republican political machine and defeating two Republican senators — Caesar Trunzo of Long Island and Serphin R. Maltese of Queens — whose combined years in office spanned more than a half a century.

But the elation felt by party leaders on Tuesday night was tempered by lingering questions about the allegiance of four Democratic senators from New York City, who have so far refused to commit to supporting a Democrat for the majority leader’s post, currently held by Senator Dean G. Skelos, the Nassau County Republican.

If no other seats change hands by the end of the night, Democrats will control at least 32 out of the 62 seats in the Senate.

Losing the Senate would not only deprive Republicans of their last outpost of power in New York, it would also mark a profound shift in political power away from rural areas and the Long Island suburbs toward New York City, Buffalo and other urban centers.

If Senator Malcolm A. Smith of Queens, the Senate’s top Democrat, is elected to the majority leader’s post, then all of Albany’s “three men in a room” — the governor, plus the Senate and Assembly leaders — will be from the five boroughs.

“This election has shown that people want change,” Mr. Smith said in a brief interview at the Sheraton in Midtown Manhattan, where he was huddling with advisers and eagerly awaiting results from Senate races across the state. “I’m optimistic, but it’s still early.”

In one of the most hotly contested and expensive races of the election, Mr. Maltese conceded defeat to Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., a Democratic city councilman from Ozone Park. In Suffolk County, the Democratic candidate, Brian X. Foley, the Brookhaven town supervisor, was leading Mr. Trunzo, a Republican who has held office since 1972, by a significant margin, according to early returns.

In an open seat in the Buffalo suburbs where the two parties, unions, and independent groups devoted hundreds of thousands of dollars, Michael H. Ranzenhofer, a Republican lawyer, was leading Joe Mesi, a Democrat who was once a professional boxer.

But two other Republicans previously thought to be safe, Senator Frank Padavan of Queens and Senator Kemp Hannon of Nassau County, were locked in surprisingly tight races with Democratic challengers late Tuesday night.

In upstate New York, Senator Darrel J. Aubertine, a Democrat who won an upset special election victory in February, was leading Dave Renzi, a Republican lawyer, in a race that Republicans were hoping to win. And William T. Stachowski, a Buffalo Democrat who appeared to be in danger of losing just a few weeks ago, was leading his Republican opponent, Dennis Delano.

All around the country, Democrats turned out in record numbers to vote for Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate. That appears to have bolstered Democrats in relatively obscure State Senate races, where Democratic workers had spent weeks calling voters to remind them to vote all the way down the ballot.

But four Democratic senators elected or re-elected on Tuesday — Pedro Espada Jr. and Ruben Diaz Sr. of the Bronx, Carl Kruger of Brooklyn and Hiram Monserrate of Queens — said that they would not attend a scheduled meeting of the Democratic conference on Wednesday, and it was unclear whether they would commit to backing Mr. Smith.

“By tomorrow we’ll have a great idea of which way the Senate is going to go, and I’m sure along with that we’ll have a comment on which way they’re going to go,” said Juda S. Engelmayer, a spokesman for the four senators.

The Democrats last won a majority in the 1964 elections, but held it for only a single fractious legislative session. Some Republicans might choose to retire rather than serve in the minority again. Political donations of special interest groups would swing to the new majority caucus, and unless Republicans retake the chamber in 2010, Democrats would control the redrawing of district lines.

“If the Democrats control redistricting, the Republicans are in the wilderness for decades,” said Gerald Benjamin, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

But the Democratic victory on Tuesday will complicate coming budget negotiations. Gov. David A. Paterson has called a special session of the Legislature for Nov. 18 to help close an estimated $1.5 billion budget shortfall for the current fiscal year and get an early start on next year’s budget.

Even before Tuesday, Republicans had suggested that they were digging in for a fight over state aid to schools and other budget items, refusing Mr. Paterson’s request for a list of proposed cuts to spending. But as a lame-duck majority, they would have little incentive to agree to painful cuts now, when they could easily pass the buck to Democrats after the Senate is reorganized early next year.

If and when Democrats do control the Senate, some of them acknowledged Tuesday night, their party will bear sole responsibility for the heavy burden of taming and running New York’s notoriously dysfunctional state government.

“We own the good and the bad; there will be no excuses,” said Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County. “We’re going be expected to take all those ideas we’ve talked about and make them happen. People are expecting us to change paradigms.”