<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2MIsbv_1GvNKcow00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2MIsbv_1GvNKcow00" width="396" height="600" ><figcaption>Mount Pleasant Councilman Thomas Sialiano, a Republican, said his party now faces seemingly insurmountable structural disadvantages for years to come.</figcaption></figure>For Mount Pleasant Republicans, last week’s election results confirmed their worst local political fears: a longtime structural advantage has vanished, leaving a steep climb back to power.A historic vote that put Democrats in control of the Town Board and beyond for the first time, combined with ongoing changes in voter registration and political calendar reform, have left Republicans facing mounting obstacles.While unexpected circumstances could return Republicans to power given the unpredictability of politics, the town’s status as one of Westchester County’s last GOP strongholds has effectively been snapped.“It was impossible for Carl and his team to win,” Mount Pleasant Republican Councilman Thomas Sialiano lamented of the ticket led by Republican Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi, who lost to former Democratic assemblyman Tom Abinanti by about 3,300 votes last week. “It was just statistically, mathematically impossible.”The election of a new supervisor and council member delivered Democrats with a 3-2 advantage on the board while the town’s Republican highway superintendent was also ousted. On top of that, the town’s Republican representative on the county Board of Legislators was soundly defeated.That all happened as voter registration continues to tilt toward Democrats – a roughly 4,000 voter advantage spreading throughout Mount Pleasant, with 12,323 Democrats, 8,067 Republicans, and 351 Conservatives, according to 2026 Board of Elections data.Registration in town remained about even as recently as 2012. But a gap favoring Democrats has been widening for the past half dozen years, ever since the pandemic year of 2020. (Somers is now the only town in Westchester without a Democratic majority in registration).The shifting political sands are even percolating through traditional Republican strongholds in the Hawthorne, Thornwood and Valhalla sections of Mount Pleasant, according to a review of the statistics.Valhalla’s change stands out as the most striking. The hamlet’s registration is now almost evenly divided, with 35 percent Republicans or Conservatives and 33 percent Democrats. Back in 2012, the gap was 42 percent to 26 percent. Even just six years ago, the Republican/Conservative bloc led 37 to 31 percent. Still, the largest Democratic pluralities and majorities are in the villages of Pleasantville (44 percent) and Sleepy Hollow (57 percent).Making matters even more difficult for Republicans, both villages are set to gain seats of their own next year on the Town Board, resulting from a 2024 lawsuit alleging Mount Pleasant’s at-large election system diluted Hispanic residents’ voting power. Mount Pleasant, currently governed by a five-member Town Board that includes the supervisor, approved a settlement in March creating dedicated council seats for Pleasantville and Sleepy Hollow, expanding the board to seven members beginning with the November 2027 elections.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1uJT9q_1GvNKcow00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1uJT9q_1GvNKcow00" width="284" height="400" ><figcaption>Carl Fulgenzi, the Republican supervisor in Mount Pleasant since 2014, lost by more than 3,000 votes last week.</figcaption></figure>‘OUTNUMBERED’Fulgenzi, supervisor since 2014, said Abinanti’s 18-point win last week was also surely aided by a coattail effect from the drubbing Republicans took in elections nationwide, fueled by what he described as massive anti-Trump sentiment. But even without that, Republicans say the scenario confronting them looms large and grim.Asked what if any strategy could help lift the party back to power in the foreseeable future, Sialiano replied: “I honestly don’t know.”Fulgenzi, in an interview with The Examiner last Wednesday, also spoke about the town-wide registration advantage enjoyed by the Democrats.“I just think we were outnumbered,” he said.Observers from both parties describe a long-building electoral milestone that could now create a durable, generational coalition for the Democrats, mirroring the GOP’s historic dominance.Raffaele “Ralph” Ferraioli, the owner and founder of La Barberia, has been monitoring town politics for more than three decades.Although he’s active with the local Democratic committee, he’s also spoken favorably of Fulgenzi, complimented aspects of President Trump’s presidencies, was appointed by the Republican Town Board two months ago to serve on the newly-revived Ethics Board, and has been both a registered Republican and a Democrat over the years.“These changes,” he remarked, “represent a new political reality for our community, and it will be interesting to see how this shapes the future of local government.” Ferraioli said local political watchers are witnessing a “significant shift in the political landscape of Mount Pleasant and Pleasantville.”Sialiano, a district leader who has served on the Town Board for two decades of Republican control, attributed last week’s Democratic sweep to the national blue wave but within the context of the structural changes that he said will make it nearly impossible for Republicans to win local elections for years to come.In 2023, New York adopted a change when Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation requiring most local elections to move to even-numbered years, beginning this year, when turnout is greater due to higher profile state and national races.Sialiano said that reform, along with the moving of Sleepy Hollow and Pleasantville village elections from March to November, has brought tens of thousands of additional voters to the polls. “They’re voting for different reasons, for national reasons,” said Sialiano, who is up for reelection himself in 2028, a presidential election year. <figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0G4mIZ_1GvNKcow00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0G4mIZ_1GvNKcow00" width="450" height="600" ><figcaption>Mount Pleasant Democratic Vice-Chair Francesca Hagadus, at Craft in Pleasantville on election night, in conversation with Michael Peppard, who won the District 3 county legislator race.</figcaption></figure>POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY KNOCKSIn March of 2024, Mount Pleasant Democratic Committee Vice-Chair Francesca Hagadus said her political antennae sprung straight up following the voter-approved referendum in Sleepy Hollow shifting municipal elections from March to November. That change began in 2025 for the village, and helped the party elect Joe Bonanno to the Town Board last November.Hagadus forecast additional electoral opportunities, if the same change was made in Pleasantville. “And so I decided I can do this,” she said in an interview on Friday morning, reflecting on her party’s commanding victories last Tuesday night while also thinking back to 2024, when Sleepy Hollow enacted the change.The former Mount Pleasant councilwoman (who won a rare Democratic victory to the Town Board in 2018 before being ousted a year later) decided to aggressively push for the same reform in Pleasantville.By Election Day last year, the referendum was on the ballot, and Pleasantville residents approved the reform overwhelmingly with about seven in 10 voters supporting the calendar change.“We moved the village elections to November so that people would be participating in their own village and therefore the villages came out in droves,” Hagadus said about last week’s resounding results.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1k6BGm_1GvNKcow00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1k6BGm_1GvNKcow00" width="779" height="509" ><figcaption>The Democratic ticket swept into power last week. From left, Highway Superintendent-elect Frank Hrotko along with Anna Nelson, who won a council seat, and Tom Abinanti, who beat Republican Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure>In addition to Abinanti defeating Fulgenzi, Democratic council candidate Anna Nelson last week beat recently-appointed Republican incumbent Gail Wind and Frank Hrotko unseated incumbent Republican Highway Superintendent Richard Benkwitt.But the change Hagadus helped engineer to create an enduring advantage for Democrats across Mount Pleasant didn’t materialize before a sometimes-contentious fight. PLEASANTVILLE’S PLEASANT POLITICSSome local observers and officials, including Pleasantville Mayor Peter Scherer, expressed significant concerns as the debate unfolded last year, worrying how the village calendar reform would change the nature and tone of local politics, more likely turning elections into divisive, ideological, partisan affairs, pitting Democrats against Republicans, instead of the friendlier, non-party affiliated contests that have been tradition.Opponents to the plan like Scherer also worried about national and statewide debates obscuring local attention from local issues. But proponents (especially Hagadus) pointed to lackluster participation and engagement in March elections. Either way, the Democratic dominance in Mount Pleasant was also seen across the county, where Democrats already enjoyed a large edge. With last week’s election results, Democrats are poised to control all 17 seats on the Westchester County Board of Legislators, up from a current 15-2 edge: District 15 Minority Whip James Nolan, a Yonkers Republican, lost to Democrat Kisha Skipper, although he is disputing the result, as of publication time. More locally, Democratic County Legislator-elect Michael Peppard, a former Pleasantville trustee, beat Minority Leader Margaret Cunzio in District 3. <figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=01m9rL_1GvNKcow00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=01m9rL_1GvNKcow00" width="773" height="600" ><figcaption>Congresswoman-elect Cait Conley, left, celebrating the Democratic victory Tuesday night in Pleasantville with Peppard, and his wife Rebecca Schoneveld.</figcaption></figure>In analyzing the strong performance for Democrats in Mount Pleasant, Peppard cited, in part, the changing composition of the town. Peppard learned how to speak Spanish for the campaign, which helped him earn trust with Hispanic voters in Sleepy Hollow in particular.“There has been a steady demographic turnover during the past five to 10 years, especially in Valhalla and Hawthorne, coupled with population growth in Sleepy Hollow,” he said. “These shifts changed the fundamentals of the Mount Pleasant electorate.”Peppard also pointed to momentum from Democrat Cait Conley’s win over Republican Congressman Mike Lawler last week while noting an extensive grassroots effort of door-knocking, community events and outreach to voters across party lines.‘TURNOUT, TURNOUT, TURNOUT’Although Democrats in Mount Pleasant have held a higher party registration advantage among voters for many years, they have generally struggled to get their voters to the polls in large enough numbers for town races. But in 2025, Joe Bonanno won a board seat. His campaign was aided by the change in Sleepy Hollow’s political calendar, Hagadus observed.“They picked candidates who were Democrats and canvassed for them and helped, and we all canvassed for them as well,” Hagadus said of Bonanno’s election and the teamwork between the Democratic committees in Sleepy Hollow and Mount Pleasant.The Sleepy Hollow piece of the new political puzzle is particularly galling to Sialiano because he said those taxpayers receive no municipal services from Mount Pleasant, and should be separate and distinct from the town. “It is unfair and unjust that village residents of Sleepy Hollow are voting in a town election but we have provided no essential services to the village,” he said. But both parties agree Democrats now enjoy a massive strategic advantage. “That’s why the whole thing was to get turnout, turnout, turnout, turnout, because we are in the majority in the Town of Mount Pleasant,” said Hagadus, who also told The Examiner she might run for Pleasantville village trustee for a third time next year, planning to decide by the time the committee convenes two months from now in January. (The 73-year-old said she’d rather a younger resident run, if the right, dynamic candidate emerges).WINNING STRATEGYHagadus herself benefited from an even-numbered year election when she won a seat on the Mount Pleasant Town Board in 2018, in the same cycle when Trump faced mid-term backlash during his first term. (She was ousted a year later, in 2019, when running for a full term).And while energizing voters to cast their ballots in Mount Pleasant was part of the calendar change strategy, Hagadus said the November election date reform was also about pressing village officials to be more politically engaged.“It’s about winning elections,” she said. “And it’s about not having what seemed to me like it was a club. That it was a group of people that knew that they were going to be okay in their position and they didn’t bother.”To the point about a lack of robust electoral debate in the village, Pleasantville Trustees W. Paul Alvarez and Nicole Asquith ran unopposed this year, officially securing reelection last week despite an anonymous, eleventh-hour campaign urging a protest write-in vote for alternative candidates to oppose the controversial Lennar development proposal. (A write-in campaign that advocated for Hagadus and local resident and project opponent Timothy Mattison).In fact, Mount Pleasant Democrats are also in the process of forming a “Pleasantville Democratic Committee,” eyeing January to establish the new political party, Hagadus also told The Examiner last week.And while Hagadus said Democrats must first and foremost represent their constituents well in the years ahead while coordinating an effective ground game and executing on voter outreach, she also said the party is now buttressed by an election calendar reform she helped engineer. “We had to just get people to vote,” she said. “And, you know, people sometimes don’t vote. They just don’t. And so you have to provide opportunities.”Veteran reporter and editor David Sheingold, a longtime Mount Pleasant resident who teaches data journalism at Columbia Journalism School, helped analyze Westchester County Board of Elections data for this piece. </div></body>

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For Mount Pleasant Republicans, last week’s election results confirmed their worst local political fears: a longtime structural advantage has vanished, leaving a steep climb back to power. A historic vote that put Democrats in control of the Town Board and beyond for the first time, combined with ongoing changes...

Mount Pleasant GOP Faces ‘Mathematically Impossible’ Challenges

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For Mount Pleasant Republicans, last week’s election results confirmed their worst local political fears: a longtime structural advantage has vanished, lea

Mount Pleasant GOP Faces ‘Mathematically Impossible’ Challenges

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