Democrats win big across Dutchess County

Democrats saw large victories across Dutchess County in the Nov. 3 elections. Incumbent Democratic Representative Pat Ryan defeated Republican opponent Jackie Mary Auringer by almost 25 percentage points. In what was supposed to be a competitive state Senate race for New York’s District 39, County Legislator Lisa Kaul defeated Republican incumbent Rob Rolison by over 10 percentage points.

The sweeping victories in a region that polls suggested could be competitive helped bring the Democrats decisive majorities in both Albany and Washington, D.C. The 39th State Senate District, long a Democratic target, was integral to the eventual success of this effort. “This is a critical seat because right now I’m a little short of a supermajority. So send me Lisa,” State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said at a Poughkeepsie rally on Nov. 1. The effort succeeded, as Democrats secured a supermajority in the state Senate. While the 18th congressional district was already thought to likely go Democratic, Ryan’s overwhelming victory solidifies it as a firmly blue district and a piece of the Democratic U.S. House majority.

Vassar College’s electoral precinct, located in the Aula and serving the College and surrounding community, saw 782 total votes, of which 87 percent in the Congressional race went to Ryan and 83 percent in the State Senate went to Kaul.

Kaul, a progressive who ran on freezing rent and supported the creation of a state single-payer healthcare system, outraised and handily defeated Rolison, an experienced incumbent who appealed to Democrats in past elections. Rolison previously served as a police officer and the Mayor of the City of Poughkeepsie, and ran a campaign that championed his local experience and bipartisanship.

Kaul was helped in her victory this year by the general Democratic-leaning demographics of the district. Rolison narrowly won reelection in 2024, by just over 2,000 votes. The same area went for former Vice President Kamala Harris by just three percent in 2024. The Democrat Ryan won reelection to the House by just under one percent in 2022. This year, he outperformed the national environment by almost 16 percent.

Both candidates made use of New York State Public Campaign Finance Program, a 2022 program which allows candidates to apply for the state government to match small donations. Kaul received over $600,000 from this program, while Rolison received just under $300,000.

Kaul maintained a strong financial advantage throughout the race, outraising Rolison by nearly double.

Her financial upper hand came largely from the state Democratic Party and the New York State Public Campaign Finance Program. This is a 2022 program which allows candidates to apply for the state government to match small donations. Kaul received over $600,000 from this program, while Rolison received just under $300,000. The state Democratic Party gave almost $300,000 to her campaign, in contrast to Rolison who did not receive donations from the Republican Party. This is a change from 2024, where the party was Rolison’s largest donor; this time around, his largest non-state donor was a single individual who gave $10,000. Kaul’s spending showed, as her signs and pamphlets could be seen around the district.

“The Republicans didn’t even try to put up a viable opponent,” Professor of Political Science Richard Born said of the 2026 race. Ryan’s Republican opponent, Auringer, was just 29 years old, held no prior political experience and stormed out of her one debate with Ryan.

“While the results weren’t what we had hoped for, I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished in just a few short months,” Auringer said in an email to The Miscellany News . She added that she is laying the foundations for a local nonprofit, planning to help rebuild the local Republican Party and is not ruling out a 2028 election bid.

Kaul has strong ties to Vassar College. She was the Director of the Office of Community-Engaged Learning from 2017 to 2021 and her husband, Jeffrey Seidman, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College. Vassar For the Many, a left-wing student organization focused on enacting left-wing policy, turned out around 30 students who knocked on roughly 300 doors. Organizer Mia Walker ’28 told the Miscellany , “Having [Kaul] as a supporter, especially replacing Rolison who is super oppositional, is strategically helpful for the rest of our campaigns.” (Rolison did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

Democracy Matters held a town hall for Kaul in Rockefeller Hall in late September, and while Rolison was offered a similar town hall, he declined, according to an email from Co-President of Democracy Matters Alex Lewin-Knauer. “[The campus] is definitely very active and Democratic,” Aidan Sinha ’29, who voted for Democrats down the ballot, told the Miscellany .

The campaigns were largely dominated by discussion of two main themes: affordability and immigration.

“We have people across the socioeconomic spectrum who talk about affordability,” Kaul told the Miscellany . “Everyone refers to groceries and gas prices—literally, regardless of whether you’re earning $120,000 a year or $50,000 or $30,000. Groceries are crazy, gas prices are crazy, everybody’s utility bills [are crazy].”

“With people whose door we knocked, the number one [issue] was Central Hudson,” Walker told the Miscellany . Central Hudson is a utilities provider for the central Hudson Valley which has been accused of price gouging. “Central Hudson [is] a corporate monopoly [that] essentially does whatever it wants to do with the blessing of the Public Service Commission,” Kaul, who hopes to turn the company into a publicly run system, said. “It’s really fleecing us, and they have no incentive to lower our rates at all.”

“The Democrats never really do much about affordability, but the Republicans seem hell-bent on making it worse and worse,” said Julian Sherman ’29.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was also a major topic of the campaign, among both politicians and voters. “ICE did, I believe, the most un-American thing I have seen in my 44 years on this earth,” Ryan said, at a Nov. 1 rally held in Poughkeepsie, regarding its aborted attempt to establish a detention center in a vacant warehouse in Chester, New York, without alerting local authorities.

“There should be more legislation that goes into carefully thinking about how ICE is dealt with and what they can and can’t do,” Jules Cressy ’29 commented. Cressy said that ICE operations were a large part of what drove him out to vote for the Democrats this November. “Before the end of last semester, [For the Many] went down to [Rolison’s] offices to talk to him [about two anti-ICE bills],” Cressy said of his activism last year. “He was giving the generic non-answers…kind of just dodging our questions.”

Rolison voted no on this year’s Public Protection and General Government bill, a section of the state budget which incorporated elements of both anti-ICE bills. However, he did oppose immigration authorities’s usage of a warehouse in Newburgh, New York.

“I worked in a restaurant in D.C. that had been raided by ICE…and a lot of people that I worked with… they had a very deep-seated dislike for that sort of intervention that has driven multiple aspects of the Republican Party,” Henry Brylawski ’29 told the Miscellany . “That really filled me with a sort of dread.”

“I’m hearing in the district about people who are not sending their kids to school,” Kaul, herself an immigrant, reported. “So ensuring, at a very micro level, safety for folks to feel like they can go to school, they can go to work, they can access healthcare when they need to.”

All of the students spoken to believed the election results were likely more a rejection of President Donald Trump than an endorsement of the Democrats. “This mostly comes as people being fed up with…the conduct of President Trump and his administration,” Brylawski said.

Looking ahead, people hope for changes in New York. “I would like to see some concrete policies. I think often people talk about the things they want to do without actually [doing them],” Walker said.

“Judge me on what resources I have brought back [to the district], judge me on whether I have created an office which is communicating clearly with you…, judge me on whether I have moved the bills that I have said that I am standing by…judge me by my responsiveness to your issues,” Kaul said.

Democrats win big across Dutchess County

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