Stark Flips North Fork Legislative Seat, Welker Keeps South Fork in Dem Hands

Republicans flipped one of two open Suffolk County legislative seats on the East End in Tuesday’s elections, helping increase the chamber’s GOP majority just as Republican Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine won the county executive’s race.

Catherine Stark, the Republican aide to outgoing Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski (D-Cutchogue), beat Democratic former Riverhead Town Councilwoman Catherine Kent by a margin of 53% to 46% in the first county legislative district representing the North Fork, according to unofficial early election results tallied by the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

In the second district on the South Fork, Democrat Ann Welker beat Republican Manuel Vilar 61% to 38% with all polling sites reporting in the race to replace outgoing Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming (D-Noyac), the unofficial tallies showed Wednesday morning. 

“Suffolk is on the right track and we are going to make it a place to live, not leave,” Stark said shortly after midnight Wednesday while thanking her cheering supporters during the Suffolk County Republican Committee election results watch party at Stereo Garden in Patchogue.

Stark’s win increased the Suffolk County Legislature’s Republican majority by one seat to 12–6 — one seat shy of a veto-proof supermajority. Up-island, the GOP flipped an open Democratic-held seat, and a Democrat unseated a freshman Republican legislator, resulting in the two upsets canceling each other out and not tipping the balance of power any further.

“I’m so excited to be standing here with these guys,” Welker told party faithful gathered at the Canoe Place Inn in Hampton Bays for the Southampton Town Democratic Committee election night watch party. “I’m looking forward to what’s coming down, what’s coming at us.”

Romaine’s win as county executive makes him the first Republican to be elected to the seat in 20 years, which is also the last time he ran for the county’s top job.

His victory to replace term-limited Democratic Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone completes Republicans’ takeover of all countywide seats in Suffolk — the other three being the offices of the comptroller, clerk and district attorney — in addition to the legislative majority.