Caleb Slater secured the Republican nomination in the race for the 48th Senate District, knocking off a well-known Onondaga County community leader who had the backing of the county’s GOP committee.
With all the districts counted, Slater got 2,587 (53%) of the vote vs. Fanny Villarreal’s 1,994 votes (41%). Slater won Cayuga County comfortably (1,118 vs. 574) and held a slim edge (1,469 vs. 1,420) in Onondaga County, a dramatic rejection of the party’s leadership and its choice of a longstanding community leader.
Villarreal has conceded, said her campaign manager, Will Dawson.
“The voters in Senate District 48 have spoken, and good luck with that guy,” Dawson said.
Slater could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.
Slater, 27, will now focus on challenging incumbent state Sen. Rachel May, the Democratic Party incumbent for the heavily Democratic district. May will be seeking her fourth term in the fall election.
The GOP candidate has a big enrollment disadvantage to overcome, with 80,717 Democratic voters, 56,095 Republicans and 56,515 independent voters.
The 48th Senate District spans the entire city of Syracuse, some western and southern towns in Onondaga County and all of Cayuga County.
Town of Onondaga resident Villarreal, 56, has led the YWCA of Syracuse and Onondaga County for more than a decade and previously was executive director of the Spanish Action League. She immigrated to the area in 1993 from Peru.
Slater, of Syracuse, is a landlord. He was raised in Yates County and then attended Cayuga Community College and Ithaca College.
The candidates put considerable effort into attacking each other’s conservative credentials. Slater has criticized Villarreal for working at the YWCA, which he claims views Central New York as racist. Villarreal said that’s a gross distortion of the organization and her work for it.
Villarreal has attacked Slater for sharing social media posts showing himself at a Bernie Sanders rally in 2016 and for not voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, opting instead for the Libertarian Party nominee for president. Slater said he was at the rally as a college journalist, not in support of Sanders, and he said he was “an unquestioning libertarian” at that time.
Both candidates said they would be staunch supporters of the Republican conference in the Senate. They want to pass more rollbacks of criminal justice law changes made in Albany in recent years.
Villarreal wants to eliminate state aid for handling the migrant crisis that’s been mainly focused in New York City, saying that’s a federal government responsibility. Slater has singled out his opposition to state policies mandating the use of renewable energy.
Villarreal was endorsed by the Onondaga County Republican Committee in February. Slater has the Cayuga County Republican Committee and the Conservative Party committee backings in Onondaga and Cayuga counties, but he will not appear on the Conservative ballot line because he missed a filing deadline.
Slater raised more funds from donors than Villarreal, pulling in $55,850 vs. $27,532. But he failed to meet requirements to tap into the public matching funds program that’s new this year. Villarreal received an extra $116,156 from that source.
City reporter Jeremy Boyer can be reached at [email protected], (315) 657-5673, Twitter or Facebook.
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