It's Tkaczyk by just 18 votes

KINGSTON — Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk will join the state Senate after election officials in Ulster and Albany counties opened 91 ballots in her close race against George Amedore. The final margin was 18 votes.

Tkaczyk, a farmer from Duanesburg, netted 54 votes as election commissioners opened 90 new ballots here on Friday morning, enough to insurmountably erase Amedore's 35-vote lead. Amedore won another ballot opened Friday afternoon in Albany. An unopened ballot in Montgomery County found this week may never be opened.

"No one believed our campaign had a chance in a district hand-carved by Republicans, and yet the power of good ideas and a strong campaign proved itself," Tkaczyk said in a statement. "...I look forward to hitting the ground running to serve my new constituents because there is no time to waste addressing the many challenges facing our state."

Only one other Senate race in recent times was closer: last year's win in Brooklyn by Republican David Storobin over Lew Fidler by 13 votes in a special election to fill the seat vacated by Democrat Carl Kruger's resignation.

In 2004, Yonkers Republican Nick Spano defeated Andrea Stewart-Cousins by 18 votes. (Stewart-Cousins took the seat two years later and now leads the chamber's Democratic conference).

Tkaczyk's win means Amedore, a homebuilder from Rotterdam, holds the record as the shortest-tenured state senator in modern Senate history. He filed an oath of office at the start of the new year. Amedore called Tkaczyk Friday morning to concede.

"I am proud of the honest and clean campaign that I and my team ran in this extended race," the former assemblyman said in a statement. "I was supported by the hard-working upstate families who are faced with tremendous challenges in these trying times. The time for politics has ended and the time to govern is at hand."

Tkaczyk will become the 33rd Democrat elected to the 63-seat Senate, but her win will not bring her party to power. Thirty Republican senators have formed a coalition with a renegade Democrat from Brooklyn, Simcha Felder, as well as the five-member Independent Democratic Conference.

Its leader, Bronx Sen. Jeff Klein, issued a statement saying he was "pleased to welcome Cecilia to the Senate and look forward to working with her to move New York forward."

Scott Reif, a spokesman for Republican Conference Leader Dean Skelos, said, "While we are disappointed that George Amedore has fallen a few votes short of being elected to the state Senate, the outcome of this race doesn't change anything. Senate Republicans have already partnered with the Independent Democratic Conference to form a majority coalition that will keep moving this state forward, and we're off to a great start."

Cuomo issued no statement on the results, and it's unclear if he called Tkaczyk, a fellow Democrat, to offer congratulations. Cuomo did not offer an endorsement in the race, and has said he will work with any constellation of senators to advance his agenda.

Amedore was the early favorite to win the seat. The 46th District — stretching from Amsterdam to Kingston encompassing parts of Montgomery, Schenectady, Albany, Greene and Ulster counties — was carved from other territories last spring by Republicans as part of the redistricting process. While it contains more enrolled Democrats than Republicans, it included the heart of Amedore's Assembly district.

Tkaczyk, by contrast, was little-known to voters, and the race simmered on a political back burner until two downstate Super PACs spent $500,000 on advertisements and a mailer boosting her. A Victoria Research poll conducted for the Super PACs, which were mostly funded by Jonathan Soros, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and his husband, Sean Eldridge, showed Tkaczyk 13 points behind a month before Election Day.

They and other progressive groups, who backed Tkaczyk over her support for publicly financed campaigns, are jubilant.

"With unwavering commitment to the people of the 46th District and the issues that matter most, Senator Tkaczyk proved that being on the right side of reform is not only good policy, it's good politics," Soros said in a statement. "Her victory shows that voters will support candidates who champion real campaign finance reform, including citizen-funded elections."

Tkaczyk and Amedore also differed on several progressive wedge issues, including a Tkaczyk's support for abortion rights and a moratorium on natural gas hydrofracking.

Friday's counting was the coda to a race that has stretched more than two months beyond the November election. Tkaczyk finished ahead that night, but Amedore filed legal action to ensure a judge monitored the counting of roughly 6,000 affidavit and absentee ballots. Campaign aides opened most of those ballots, but 887 were examined by Acting Montgomery County Supreme Court Justice Guy Tomlinson during a three-week trial. Tomlinson invalidated about 450 of the ballots — including 53 votes cast before Election Day by Ulster County poll inspectors. That count wrapped up the week before Christmas, when Tomlinson certified Amedore as the winner by 37 votes. Tkaczyk's campaign appealed, and a mid-level court ruled 99 more ballots should be opened. Amedore was unsuccessful in appealing to the state's highest court.

Counting Thursday in Greene County pared Amedore's lead to 35 votes. The Ulster County counting lasted less than an hour, and yielded 69 votes for Tkaczyk, 15 for Amedore, two for a write-in candidate and two blank ballots.

New results from Albany, Greene and Ulster counties must now be formally certified by the state Board of Elections, which will then re-certify the race to reflect Tkaczyk as the winner. The process could be completed as soon as Tuesday, when the Senate is set to reconvene.

jvielkind@timesunion.com • 518-454-5081 • @JimmyVielkind