By Connor Adams Sheets
Candidates to represent Flushing and surrounding areas in elected office have filed their campaign finance disclosures for the first half of 2010 and the neighborhood’s most contentious race is for longtime state Sen. Toby Stavisky’s (D-Whitestone) seat.
Stavisky has held her seat since 1999, when she became the first Queens woman elected to the Senate.
But her challengers, Democrats Isaac Sasson and John Messer, and Republican Robert Schwartz are hoping to ride what many predict will be an anti-incumbency tide among voters in order to unseat the experienced legislator.
Stavisky has the financial advantage so far, state campaign records show.
But Sasson, a philanthropist, community activist and winner of millions in the New York State Lottery, has stated that he is ready and willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his run.
Messer has gotten off to a good fund-raising start, especially considering the fact that this is his first election bid and he is a relative unknown within the Flushing political community.
Schwartz is behind the other candidates, but he has no primary challenger, which buys him some time to raise funds before the general election.
In the state Assembly races, no challengers to Assemblywomen Grace Meng (D-Flushing) and Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing) have filed disclosures.
