Courtesy Tara Gaston campaign (2021)
Tara Gaston
Bruce Altimar and Gabriel P. O'Brien won the two slots in the Working Families Party primary in Saratoga Springs yesterday. Altimar took 50% of the vote and O’Brien took 45.2%, leaving Saratoga Springs Supervisor Tara Gaston, a Democrat, with just 4.75% of the vote, according to the Saratoga County Board of Elections unofficial results.
A total of 42 votes were cast, though absentee ballots have not been counted. The Working Families Party has only 100-plus people.
The WFP in Saratoga County has been in what leaders there call a fight for the party, as former conservatives and Independence Party members registered for the WFP, which is a progressive party, to use the primary system to get another line on the ballot this November. Candidates often run on their own party's line and win endorsements to run on another similar, party's line as well.
“They stole the line for now,” said Joe Seeman, a spokesman for the Saratoga County’s Working Families Party. The two men will appear on the WFP ballot line in November. Seeman says the two men are much more conservative in their political views than the platform the WFP has endorsed.
“There’s nothing we can do except let people know these are not Working Family Party candidates,” Seeman said.
A call to O’Brien today went unanswered. Altimar does not list a phone number on the candidate information provided to the county. Neither appear to have a campaign website, Facebook page or similar social media platform.
Chris Obstarczyk, the chair of the Saratoga Springs Republican committee, said that his party was not a part of this move.
Saratoga Springs Supervisor Tara Gaston had been endorsed by the Working Families Party before the primary was forced.
"This primary does not change the fact that I am the only candidate for Supervisor with the full endorsement and support of the Working Families Party and the candidate with a solid record of progressive and people-first work for our community," Gaston wrote today in an email.
Seeman said the move came after conservative, Independence and some Republican voters switched party affiliation in order to lift their own candidates and force a primary against the candidates, such as Gaston, who the Working Families Party had already endorsed via their own process.
This was possible largely because the WFP had only a few dozen members before the others joined. Once they joined, they had the numbers to lift candidates in at least seven races countywide.
The WFP-endorsed candidates, all Democrats, stepped down rather than fight a primary against “ghost” candidates, Seeman said. The idea that he posits is that conservatives in the primaries would not vote for anyone on the ballot but write in the GOP nominee for that race.
For instance, in the Saratoga Springs mayor’s race Ronald Kim, the Democrat, had the Working Families Party endorsement. Heidi West, an independent, is running on the Republican line.
Kim chose not to run in the primary, Seeman’s thinking goes, because conservatives in the WFP would not have voted for his challenger. They would have written in West’s name rather than vote for either Kim or the other candidate on the ballot. This would give West and the Republicans another line on the ballot, Seeman said.
Late calls to Heidi West and Ronald Kim were not returned. Tom Sartin, who is written about in other publications, such as the Times-Union for orchestrating this move, did not return a late phone call for comment.
Attorney John Sweeney, a former Republican Congressman, represented Sartin and others in a lawsuit that attempted to force the Democrats off the WFP ballot. He said in an interview that he did not know the strategy and was just legal counsel in the lawsuit.
"We were caught unaware" that people were enlisting in the party at those higher numbers, Seeman said, adding that the party will wrest control back from its conservative wing next time.