Frank Scaturro, a New Hyde Park attorney who on Tuesday lost the Republican nomination for New York’s 4th Congressional District in a primary against Bruce Blakeman, said Thursday that he is concerned the district’s constituents would be ill-served in Washington by either Blakeman or his Democratic challenger, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice.
“I think our residents continue to suffer from an onerous cost of living brought on by a tax burden that is far beyond anything it should reasonably be [and] a regulatory [economic] environment that has hurt job creation,” said Scaturro, 41. Blakeman, who had the back of the Nassau County Republican Committee, defeated Scatturo 8,461-4,404 with 65.07 percent of the GOP vote, according to the Nassau County Board of Elections.
“We really face a crisis of opportunity,” Scatturo said. “It’s something I talked a lot about on the campaign trail.”
Scaturro, who positioned himself as an outsider to the GOP status quo in his third unsuccessful bid for Congress, said he thinks he gave Republican voters within the district an alternative voice during the primary and was appreciative of his staff and supporters, some who took time off work or battled illness to campaign on his behalf.
He lost in a bid for the Republican nomination against Francis Becker in 2012 and but was on the November ballot as the Conservative Party candidate. In 2010, Scaturro lost a three-way race against Becker and Tea Party candidate Daniel Maloney. In all three races, Scatturo bucked the county Republican party and criticized their unwillingness to accept outsiders.
Blakeman, the Nassau County Legislature’s presiding officer from 1996-99, entered Tuesday’s primary with endorsements from the county’s Republican, Conservative and Independence parties.
“I’ve heard from many people who live in our county that have expressed to me that they now understand so much they did not understand before about how politics works locally, and I’ve gotten very kind notes from people who have thanked me for what we’ve done to shed light on it and for offering people a choice,” Scatturo said. “I just hope it’s not the last time Republican voters have such a choice.”
The Fourth Congressional District of New York includes the communities of Baldwin, Bellmore, East Meadow, the Five Towns, Lynbrook, Floral Park, Franklin Square, Garden City, Hempstead, Long Beach, Malverne, Merrick, Mineola, Carle Place, New Hyde Park, Oceanside, Rockville Centre, Roosevelt, Uniondale, West Hempstead and Westbury.
Scaturro, who was defeated Tuesday by a 2-1 margin, attributed the vote differential to Blakeman’s ability to campaign using televised attack advertisements and twice as many home mailings to potential voters. He added a low voter turnout in the primary – created, he said, by its staging in June rather than September – likely contributed to losing precincts his campaign projected him to win.
“The people who were taking a measure of where the voters were didn’t have anything close to the margin that was ultimately posted. In fact, the term ‘statistically impossible’ even came up by someone who was taking a measure of the phone banking we had done,” he said. “They had a sampling of some areas that overall were neutral showed a dead heat, and that’s not going into other areas where I typically would have a 3-1 or 4-1 advantage. The numbers still do not make sense.”
Though Blakeman said Tuesday he would welcome Scaturro’s endorsement in the general election, Scaturro declined to comment on whether he would support the Republican nominee, adding he was not certain whether the two would even speak in the coming weeks.
“I will say this,” Scaturro said, “I really hope Ms. Rice is not elected, and I think it would not bode well for all of us who are disappointed in the status quo in Washington. I think it would be a very unfortunate thing to have happen.”
