By KIM SMITH DEDAM
ELIZABETHTOWN — Challenger Kristy Sprague beat incumbent District Attorney Julie Garcia in the hotly contested Republican primary.
Unofficial results reported Tuesday night by the Essex County Board of Elections showed 2,312 votes for Sprague and 2,044 for Garcia.
Sprague won the towns of North Elba and Ticonderoga, while Garcia took a nearly 10-point hometown win in Moriah and earned strong support in Schroon.
Both candidates will remain on the ballot, Sprague running as a Republican, a conservative and an independent and Garcia running as a Democrat.
SPRAGUE ‘THANKFUL’
Both candidates were energized by voters’ response.
Sprague, who received the Essex County Republican Party endorsement in the race, was very happy.
“I am very relieved and very thankful for the outcome. I’m hoping that we can unite our party, now that the primary is over, and work hard for the November 3 election. We plan to get out there, hit the streets and talk to the voters and see what issues they have that haven’t been heard. I want to thank all our supporters; this was a grassroots campaign.”
GARCIA ‘EXCITED’
Garcia was thrilled with her share of GOP support.
“I’m pretty excited. We ran without the Republican endorsement, and obviously we garnered 46 percent of the vote. That is something to be proud of.
“The turnout was light, and I think sometimes people don’t come out to vote because they’re satisfied with what they have.”
Essex County has 12,423 registered Republicans.
“I think we’ll see a bigger voter turnout in November,” Garcia said, “and because we have bipartisan support, I anticipate a victory.”
Although Garcia has the Essex County Democratic Party endorsement, her independent line was disqualified due to errors made, according to the Board of Elections, when a campaign worker in the Town of Essex collected signatures for Garcia and also signed the form, which disqualified the petition and left the DA without enough signatures to run as an independent.
REMATCH
The two candidates faced each other in the 2005 Republican Primary for district attorney, a contest of three.
Garcia received the GOP endorsement that year and won the primary by a wide margin. Placing third behind Debra Whitson, Sprague withdrew from the race before the general election in 2005.
Garcia, a former assistant district attorney in Suffolk and Rensselaer counties and a private attorney for more than six years before being elected DA, has marked her tenure by strengthening her office’s response to underage drinking and drunk driving in Essex County.
Sprague has served nearly 12 years as an assistant district attorney in Clinton County, where she recently prevailed in several high-profile murder and child-sex-abuse cases.
A third candidate eyed the race early on. Brian Barrett, an attorney in Lake Placid, considered running as an independent but opted to back Garcia instead.
E-mail Kim Smith Dedam at:
kdedam@pressrepublican.com
