Nassau County Legislative District 9 candidates Juleigh Chin and Scott Strauss separated by one vote, according to latest count

The race for Nassau County District 9 — the closest legislative contest in Tuesday's election — was still undecided Thursday.

The latest reported vote count, from late Wednesday night, had Roslyn Democrat Juleigh Chin ahead of Mineola Republican Scott Strauss, the incumbent, by just one vote, with 27,548 votes counted. That total includes some absentee ballots, which are still being counted as they arrive.

Nassau Board of Elections ballot data from Wednesday showed 60 Democratic, 35 Republican and 55 unaffiliated absentee ballots still outstanding, with much smaller numbers for other parties.

At midday Thursday, Joe Cairo, the county Republican chairman, said the numbers he'd seen were "not encouraging ... On the other hand, this is a local election. We are keeping our hopes that people who know Scott will cross party lines to vote for him." Overall, Cairo acknowledged, "We didn’t do well at all ... Democrats came out and voted in large numbers."

In a phone interview Thursday morning, Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs said he believed the situation favored his candidate.

Generally, absentee ballots "have been breaking, in the past, over 2-1 Democratic," he said. Ballots postmarked by Election Day will be counted as they arrive, through Nov. 10.

The 9th District includes Mineola, North New Hyde Park, North Hills, Manhasset Hills, Searingtown and East Williston and parts of New Hyde Park and Williston Park.

Both county leaders said the timing of the election, on an even year, had been decisive, though they disagreed over the impact.

Cairo said scheduling local elections along with higher-profile races, like the contest between Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Kathy Hochul for New York State governor, meant that races like the Nassau 9th got "lost in the shuffle." Lower-ballot candidates "can’t compete" for voter attention with the more prominent races, he said.

Jacobs, who also leads the state Democrats, said Chin and other Democrats had benefited from the even-year election’s higher voter turnout. He added: "She’s a great candidate. She was a great candidate last year."

Strauss, Northwell Health's vice president of corporate security, beat Chin by about 1,800 votes in 2025.

In the interim, Chin, a program manager at North Shore University Hospital and a Herricks school board trustee, stayed active in community affairs, said North Hempstead Town Democratic chair Sabereh Samet. "She did the hard work ... She went to everything, she introduced herself," Samet said.

Cairo said he doubted that his candidate — a former Mineola mayor and NYPD detective who searched for Ground Zero survivors after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — was suffering from nerves as he waited for the final vote count.

"Obviously, anyone in a contest wants to win," Cairo said. "But he's a hero and he's an adult."

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.