A very blue midterm

The 2026 midterm election was tremendous for Democrats. On a national level, the party flipped many historically red states and reclaimed both chambers of Congress. In several states, such as North Carolina, the party won back huge legislature majorities.

New York, which is already a Democratic party stronghold, appears to be headed toward supermajorities in both state legislative bodies. Gov. Kathy Hochul also won reelection with likely her best showing yet. (The Beacon is providing vote-count updates here as AP reports them.)

“Tonight signals a turning point for Rochester—new Democratic leadership in Washington, a stronger Democratic majority in Albany, and Democrats elected across Monroe County,” state Sen. Jeremy Cooney said in a statement following his win. “Working together, we must transition the celebration into a clarion call for bold leadership that delivers on age-old promises.

In an election some are calling a “blue tsunami,” unofficial results from the Monroe County and New York State elections boards show that the Rochester area may have felt some wave action. However, those turned out to be fairly gentle and ultimately had little impact on the overall outcome of local races.

Turnout implications

An analysis of both turnout and vote totals suggests two scenarios. Either voters who typically support Republicans switched sides for this election cycle and voted for the Democratic candidate, or those same voters chose to stay home this year and typical Democratic voters showed up in greater numbers.

Either way, the impact of that was minimal on local election outcomes.

The Monroe County Board of Elections does not yet have turnout reports by party, but overall voter turnout was down countywide compared to the last midterm election. This year, 53% of voters showed up to the polls, down 4% compared with 2022.

It also appears that the county’s suburbs drove this decline. While voter participation in the city of Rochester stayed relatively steady at 40%, turnout in towns was down from 62% in 2022 to 56% in 2026. This was most apparent in the towns of Gates and Greece, both of which barely topped the 50% mark this year.

Further, election results suggest that in the suburbs, it was Republican voters who failed to show up to the polls.

In the race for New York’s 25th Congressional District, Democratic incumbent Joe Morelle’s 176,401 votes were up 17% from the last midterm election. By contrast, the 103,430 votes for Republican candidate Virginia McIntyre represent a decrease of 17% compared to LaRon Singletary’s effort in 2022.

The numbers further reveal that McIntyre performed worse in every district compared to both Singletary and Gregg Sadwick’s bid in 2024. (Morelle defeated Singletary and Sadwick with 53% and 60% of the vote, respectively. Unofficial results show he won 62% this year.)

Greece’s turnout decline was particularly damaging for McIntyre’s chances as the town has one of the county’s highest enrollment rates for Republicans. In Greece, there were 6,707 fewer ballots cast for the Republican candidate compared with 2022 and 4,688 fewer when compared to 2024.

There were also at least 2,000 fewer votes for the Republican candidate in Perinton, Irondequoit, and Webster, as well as the city of Rochester, an area where McIntyre previously said it was important for her to make inroads.

On the flip side, her opponent’s performance was mostly in line or slightly better than previous midterm elections. Compared to 2022, Morelle improved his ballot total by about 14% in both the city and suburbs, further suggesting that county Republicans failed to show up this midterm.

Morelle’s strongest areas of support continue to be the city and suburban districts to the east and south. This cycle he also did better than usual in the towns of Chili, Greece, and Gates, portions of which make up McIntyre’s county Legislature seat.

“This was a rejection of the corruption, of the cruelty, and the chaos of Donald Trump and the national Republican party,” Morelle said in his victory speech. “That is what tonight was about.”

While congratulating Morelle on his win, McIntyre instead suggested that money played an important role in the contest.

“I am really hoping that no matter what happens tonight, there are other people, Democrats and Republicans, all over the country who will be motivated to run for office and not take that PAC money and not sell out because it’s really important to keep that hope alive,” she said.

Other races

Holding with the trend seen in Monroe County’s results, Republican incumbent Claudia Tenney in New York’s 24th Congressional District received fewer votes than in the last midterm election cycle. However, this did not make much of a difference—Tenney still handily defeated Democratic challenger Alissa Ellman with 60% of the vote.

Ellman’s 40% voter share was an improvement for Democrats, however. In 2022 and 2024, both Steven Holden and David Wagenhauser received about 34% of the vote against Tenney.

Unlike Monroe County, turnout was actually slightly up in the “Lake District,” improving by about 4 percentage points, compared to 2022.

The trend of fewer votes for Republican candidates extended to every state race in the region as well. For example, votes for Republican candidates in Cooney’s state Senate District 56 declined by 25% in 2026 compared with 2022. The 137th State Assembly District, which was won by Demond Meeks last night, saw a 24% decline.

This held true even for districts where the GOP held an advantage. The 130th Assembly District was won by Republican George Dobbins, who saw a turnout decline of 15% for his party. Even Pamela Helming in the very red state Senate District 54 saw a 10% downturn in votes on the Republican line compared to 2022.

Similar to the 24th Congressional District, this decline did not affect the outcome in any of these races, however, as the expected candidate ended up winning each election.

Town and village contests

In town races, Democrats had a mostly successful night.

Nick Coffee flipped the Gates town supervisor for Democrats with 51% of the vote. His win ends a 65-year streak of Republican leadership in the town, echoing several other town supervisor party-flipping elections last year in Greece, Perinton, and Penfield.

Democrat Alex Scialdone narrowly held onto his Webster town supervisor position by a margin of less than 500 votes. (Political agitator Kevin Lockhart, running on the Justice and Peace party line, won 646 votes.)

Greece Democrats improved their standing further, with all three of their candidates for Greece’s town council winning their races. There are four council wards in Greece, meaning the Democrats will have a majority in town government.

While they suffered several defeats, Republicans did have two victories at the town level. Bill Smith earned his seventh term as Pittsford town supervisor with 54% of the vote. He continues to hold the position even as party enrollment in the town turns bluer and he has faced several competitive Democratic challengers.

In addition, Frank Tasber won back the Rush town supervisor position for Republicans with a margin of 61 votes. Democrat Lee Hankins, who took office this January, faced another contest due to New York’s legislative shift of local elections.

In Fairport, the write-in campaign by Tracy Briggs might have been successful. Briggs launched her campaign after losing the Democratic primary in June to fellow trustee Heidi Woika. While “write-in” was listed with 51% of the vote, the specific name for write-in ballots have not been counted yet and the race winner remains undeclared. Unofficially, the two candidates are separated by 67 votes—10 more than Woika’s margin of victory in the primary.

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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