East End Election Night Updates

Update (11:45 p.m.)

Congressman Lee Zeldin has declared victory in his bid for a fourth term. We haven’t heard yet from Ms. Goroff’s campaign.

“We’ve been talking about how this was going to be one of the most important elections of our lifetime,” Mr. Zeldin told a crowd of supporters at his Center Moriches campaign headquarters just after 11:30 p.m. “What type of a country do you want? Now, go out and fight for it. We don’t want to have to wake up the day after an election wishing we had fought a little harder.”

He thanked Ms. Goroff for a hard-fought campaign.

“We need to come together when the election is over and we need to work with each other, not as Democrats first or Republicans first but as Long Islanders,” he said.

The New York State Board of Elections reported Nov. 1 that there are currently 513,482 active voters in the First Congressional District, which does not include all of Suffolk County, which has 1,037,490 active voters. We do not yet have a tally of the number of absentee ballots received by the county that were from the First Congressional District.

Update (11:35 p.m.)

The county is now reporting that 925 of 1052 election districts have reported in, with President Donald Trump’s lead here expanding to 55.49 percent of the in-person vote to Joe Biden’s 43.15 percent.

Incumbent Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, of the First Congressional District, saw his in-person vote lead grow to 61.12 percent to Democratic Challenger Nancy Goroff’s 38.85 percent.

Original Post (11:20 p.m.)

Suffolk County’s election results are beginning to pour in. As of 11:10 p.m. the county’s election night tally website is not reporting how many districts have reported results.

At that time, the county was reporting a wide lead in in-person voting for President Donald Trump, with 55.29 percent of the vote in so far to Joe Biden’s 43.36 percent.

The county reported that 273,094 ballots had been cast so far for Mr. Trump and 214,169 ballots had been cast for Mr. Biden, a total of 487,263 votes.

By comparison, 654,521 Suffolk residents had cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election, and 538,282 Suffolk residents had voted for president in 2012.

In the race for the First Congressional District, the county had reported at that time that incumbent Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin has 60.84 percent of the in-person vote, while his challenger, Nancy Goroff, has 39.14 percent. The county Board of Elections reports Mr. Zeldin has so far received 162,207 votes to Ms. Goroff’s 104,340.

This year’s election is likely to hinge on high turnout, but how high remains to be seen. Early voting throughout Suffolk County saw long lines all nine days it was made available, with 122,135 county residents casting early ballots.

There were lines at many East End polling places when voting began at 6 a.m. today — in a normal year, lines would be an unusual sight on the East End — but most of those lines thinned out as the day wore on.

Absentee ballots will also play a key role.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections reported it has received requests for 209,207 absentee ballots for today’s election by the Oct. 27 deadline and 120,091 absentee ballots had been received by the Board of Elections as of Monday afternoon, 57.4 percent of ballots that had been requested. The county reported that registered Democrats had requested 98,093 absentee ballots, while registered Republicans had requested 49,446 absentee ballots. The remaining 27,448 ballot requests were from voters who weren’t registered with either major party.

Suffolk will continue to accept absentee ballots postmarked by today through next Tuesday, Nov. 10, when counting of these ballots will begin.

In other East End races, Republican Anthony Palumbo had a lead as of 11:10 a.m. over Democrat Laura Ahearn in the First State Senate District seat to be vacated by Kenneth P. LaValle, with 56.91 percent of the vote to Ms. Ahearn’s 42.92 percent. 72,342 votes had been cast for Mr. Palumbo and 54,422 for Ms. Ahearn. Mr. Palumbo is currently the State Assemblyman on the North Fork and Ms. Ahearn is the Executive Director of the Crime Victims Center.

In the North Fork’s State Assembly race to replace Mr. Palumbo, the county is reporting Republican Riverhead Town Councilwoman Jodi Giglio has 62.5 percent of the vote, ahead of former Democratic Riverhead Town Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith, who has 36.16 percent of the vote. Ms. Giglio had racked up 34,123 votes, while Ms. Jens-Smith had won 19,740.

South Fork State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, a Democrat, is in the lead with 53.32 percent of the vote over Republican Heather Collins, who has 46.66 percent. Mr. Thiele currently has 28,177 votes to Ms. Collins’ 24,661.

We will update the top of this post as the evening continues.