Democrat Peter Harckham defeats incumbent Terrence Murphy in 40th District New York State Senate Race

three people in front of pace flag
Vanessa J. Herman, Senator-Elect Peter Harckham, and Bill Colona in front of Willcox Hall at Pace University on November 19, 2018. The Senator-Elect helped Pace access a $200,000 grant from the State and Municipal Facilities Program which helped renovate Willcox Hall. (Vanessa J. Herman)

Posted By: Kamari Stewart November 20, 2018

“It was kind of a relief… It took a few days to finally sink in,” said New York State Senator-Elect Peter Harckham as he reflected on his win in the 2018 midterm elections.

Senator-Elect Harckham ran against Republican-incumbent Terrence Murphy, who has served as the Senator for New York State Senate’s 40th district since 2015. The 40th district includes parts of Dutchess, Westchester, and Putnam counties.

Vanessa J. Herman, Assistant Vice President of Government & Community Relations at Pace University was not surprised by the Harckham win. “The polls indicated this would be a tight race and voter turnout for a midterm election was high,” she said.

Herman said that both Harckham and Murphy spent a lot of their time meeting with the constituents of the 40th district and ran campaigns that were focused on their experience. Murphy has previously served on the Yorktown Town Board and several task forces and committees as a local councilman. Harckham has previously served as a Westchester County Legislator and in the Office of Community Renewal under the Cuomo administration.

During the race, Murphy accused Harckham of sending paid protestors to his office and putting cameras around his office to spy on residents and staff.

Harckham denied using those tactics and called the accusations “very typical of the Trump-era style of politicking.

“I’ve got a thick skin, say whatever you want about me. But the voters deserve to hear the truth. Elected officials have an obligation to stick to the truth, and that’s what I’m going to do moving forward,” he said.

Some of Harckham’s election promises included passing the Reproductive Health Act, which would ensure that women would have “legal access to reproductive healthcare choices”; the Red Flag Bill, which would allow a judge to “temporarily remove firearms from someone ruled to be a threat to themselves or others”; and the Child Victims Act, which would “extend the statute of limitations so that victims can hold their abuser, and the institutions that enabled them, accountable in a court of law.”

He remains confident that it will get done. “These are things that the assembly has passed that the prior Republican leadership in the Senate has blocked. There is support in the Democratic conference for all three of these items so I suspect that that’s some of the low-hanging fruit that we can get done quickly,” Harckham said.