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JAMESTOWN – Chautauqua County will likely have a new District Attorney as preliminary results indicate Republican Jason Schmidt has defeated incumbent Democrat DA Patrick Swanson.
Speaking at an event in Downtown Jamestown on Tuesday night, Schmidt told the crowd he doesn’t want to count out the 10,000 absentee ballots yet to be counted, however his lead is “big”.
Schmidt leads with 29,925 votes, 63 percent, over Swanson’s 17,122, 36 percent.
“I want to be respectful to the 10,000 votes that are still out there that have to be counted, those votes matter, but look, those numbers are big, I’m good at taking a win here,” said Schmidt. “I did receive a call from Mr. Swanson, and he was very gracious in congratulating me and wishing me good luck, that’s important, I know there is a lot of work ahead.”
DA Swanson, who spoke with WNY News Now LIVE following Schmidt’s remarks, said he was disappointed and wished Schmidt luck.
“I think what the community is going to find out, it really doesn’t matter who is in that spot,” said Swanson. “You are going to be dealing with the same county court, the same difficult crimes, it is a difficult job every single day, and I think that what people have at this point is an expectation that cannot be satisfied in this county.”
Swanson says it is “unfortunate” that national politics, people’s “drive” on the party line is dictating politics locally.
WNYNewsNow’s Matt Hummel and Justin Gould contributed to this report.
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