WELLSVILLE, NY (WNY News Now) – Joseph Sempolinski was narrowly elected the next Representative for New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
WNY News Now projects the Republican candidate won Tuesday night’s race against Democrat Max Della Pia. The two faced off in a special election to fill the seat of Tom Reed, who resigned from the post in May to take a job in the private sector.
Across the district, Sempolinski narrowly won 51 percent of the vote over Della Pia’s 48 percent leading nearly 2,000 votes as of 11:20 p.m. Tuesday.
Locally, Sempolinski won over the majority of voters in Chautauqua County winning nearly 60 percent of vote to Della Pia’s 40 percent, 8,039 to 5,413.
As a former staffer with Reed’s Office and Steuben County Republican Committee Chair, he was chosen unanimously by party leaders to run in this summer’s special election.
Once sworn into office, Sempolinski will finish out the final four months of Reed’s term.
While he will only serve a short term in Congress, Sempolinski says it will be time well spent.
“Three of the four months of this remainder of the term, the house will be in session, and the house is very closely divided. So who is chosen in this election could very well determine what passes the house and what doesn’t pass the house,” Sempolinski told WNY News Now following a debate last week.
Even though Della Pia was not elected on Tuesday night, he will still face the winner of the GOP Primary election in this fall’s general election.
The current 23rd Congressional District, which includes all of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tompkins and Yates counties, plus parts of Ontario and Tioga counties, will change next year as part of a redistricting.
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