In race for Nassau district attorney, Nicole Aloise and incumbent Anne Donnelly draw on personal conviction in vision for office

The race to become Nassau County's top law enforcement official is between two career prosecutors, both with a tough-on-crime approach, deep roots in the community and a passion to keep the streets safe.  

Anne Donnelly, who in 2021 became the first Republican elected district attorney in more than 15 years, is asking Nassau voters to grant her a second term based on work including putting away MS-13 gang members, cold case indictments and having the independence to launch the first inquiries into disgraced former Rep. George Santos, a Republican.

Her Democratic challenger, Nicole Aloise, who moved from the Queens District Attorney's Office to the Nassau County District Attorney's Office, has highlighted her record in the courtroom, including taking on MS-13 gang members, an endorsement from the county's largest employee union and a campaign supported with smaller donations rather than the political committees. Aloise asserts Donnelly isn't fit to lead the office, pointing to an exodus of experienced prosecutors that has resulted in fewer convictions. 

Both women live in Garden City and are active in the community. Both have three children and say motherhood helps motivate them to ensure public safety and bring justice on behalf of families.

Notably, both have been vocal in their opposition to state law that eliminates cash bail for most criminal defendants, whether they are facing misdemeanor or nonviolent felony charges — an issue many Democrats argued was an important criminal justice measure and Republicans held up as the single most threatening policy to public safety. In 2021, the issue resonated with voters still emerging from the pandemic, resulting in Republican victories across Long Island. Donnelly's 2021 opponent, former State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Long Beach Democrat, was tied to authoring the legislation. 

Their pitch

Donnelly, 61, spent 32 years working under three district attorneys in the office she now leads. She served as deputy bureau chief of the Organized Crime and Rackets Bureau and the Economic Crimes Bureau. Donnelly has prosecuted violent felonies, murder-for-hire cases and narcotics traffickers. 

"I was a prosecutor for 32 years before I got elected. I don't need to stand on a soapbox and say how wonderful I am," Donnelly said. "I am a prosecutor, I'm not a politician, and my four years in office have just gone to work toward keeping Nassau safe."  

In an interview with Newsday, Donnelly spoke of establishing new units within the office to focus on getting illegal guns off the streets, finding "pill-pushing" doctors and others who prescribe narcotics and address the problem of hate crimes in communities. She defended her record as an effective manager, having been in charge of several bureaus, and says many of the staffing changes in the office were due to a new administration as well as post-pandemic attrition.

Aloise, 42, worked 11 years in the Queens district attorney's office, where she prosecuted major crimes and violent felons. She joined the Nassau County District Attorney's Office in 2019 under former District Attorney Madeline Singas, where she worked in narcotics and gangs, then homicide bureaus. She left Donnelly's administration because of a difference of opinion in policies in 2023. Aloise wound up returning to the Queens District Attorney's Office for a brief period, working in the homicide bureau, before leaving to run for Nassau district attorney.

"I would make sure I use my experience in fighting violent crime — be tough on crime — and make sure the people who have committed crimes in this community, in this county, and people who are considering committing crimes in this county know there are going to be consequences to their actions," Aloise said. 

Aloise, in her interview with Newsday, spoke about how she would put more resources into addressing the opioid crisis and educating people on accidental overdoses while lobbying for harsher penalties for drug dealers.

"At the same time, we need to be trying to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law that we can right now," Aloise said. 

The job, politics and cashless bail

The winner on Nov. 4 would oversee an office with a $62 million budget that earmarks a 2024 payroll of $56 million, about 5% of the county's total payroll, according to the Nassau County Comptroller's Office. There were 288 full-time assistant district attorneys in the office in 2024, according to the comptroller's online database.  

The district attorney's salary in Nassau was $224,000 in 2024, according to payroll records. While the post sets the tone for law enforcement in the county, it is often not without influence from New York City, Albany and Washington, D.C., policies and politics, political experts say.

Lawrence Levy, executive director of the Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said the success of "so-called down ballot" candidates depends a lot on the top  of the ticket and how voters feel about other issues or lawmakers beyond the scope of Nassau County lawmakers.

How voters feel about the policies and ideas of Republican President Donald Trump and New York City mayoral Democratic socialist nominee Zohran Mamdani will matter, Levy said. 

"Both major parties on Long Island are trying to tie their opponents to one of the other to make the case that they are extremists and thus not to be trusted by the more moderate suburban voters," Levy said. "You can call it a mutual campaign of guilt by alleged association." 

Sharing the 2021 ballot with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Donnelly won with a campaign platform largely based on opposition to cashless bail, making the case Kaminsky was aligned with the more left-leaning factions of the party. Suburban voters, many just beginning to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, rejected Kaminsky and his fellow Democrat, then-County Executive Laura Curran.

While Nassau voters often elect a county executive opposite the party of the sitting president, the same can't be said for the district attorney's race, with former Democratic district attorneys in Nassau having been elected alongside former County Executive Ed Mangano, a Republican.

Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman Joseph Cairo, while acknowledging Aloise isn't as closely tied to state bail reform efforts, said cashless bail "is still an important issue in 2025 and will continue to be an issue until state Democrats repeal it or make significant changes."

Since it took effect in 2020, cashless bail — the practice of eliminating bail for most low-level offenses to limit pretrial confinement — has undergone revisions after critics charged it took too much discretion away from judges. Jurists are now able to impose bail on more offenses, but critics say the law is too lenient, allowing those accused of a crime to be released and commit other crimes. Proponents say cashless bail creates a more equitable justice system, allowing those who can't afford bail to await trial in their communities. 

"Is cashless bail important? You're damn right it is — come on. It's as important today as it was four years ago. People commit crimes and they go home free," Cairo said. Violent felons and those who are considered a flight risk are still held without bail. 

Aloise, however, has stood up to her party against cashless bail and may have been called out for not espousing the same views as others Democrats. 

While in the Queens District Attorney's Office, Aloise in 2021 was one of 21 prosecutors singled out by a group of left-leaning law professors advocating for transparency in prosecutorial misconduct reporting as the office moved to overturn 60 convictions involving three former NYPD detectives. The group of academics created a website around their work and reached out to a state grievance committee but were unsuccessful in initiating any disciplinary action against Aloise. 

When asked about it, Aloise stood by her record. 

"I was targeted by soft-on-crime progressive law professors who disagreed with my zealous prosecution of violent criminals," Aloise said in a statement to Newsday. "In my 16 years as a prosecutor, I have never had a conviction overturned."  

Aloise had a campaign balance of $246,871 as of early October, according to state Board of Election filings, and says she has not taken any donations from the Nassau Democratic Committee. Donnelly had $732,429 in her campaign account as of Oct. 10, according to state filings. 

Jay Jacobs, county and state Democratic Committee chairman, called Aloise "tough, fair and relentless."  

"As a prosecutor, she has been a constant fighter in putting violent criminals behind bars. Nicole will never back down from doing what's right, even when it isn't politically convenient," Jacobs said in a text statement. 

What others say

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder, who has been friends with Donnelly for decades, said the two worked closely together as they rose through the ranks. 

"We go back to when she was a baby DA and I was a baby cop," Ryder said, noting he also enjoyed a good working relationship with Donnelly's predecessors, Singas and Kathleen Rice, both Democrats. "My job is to make sure that the relationship between the police department and the district attorney works because if we have division, it hurts the civilian community."   

When asked whether a lower conviction rate during Donnelly's first term in office was at odds with police work, Ryder pointed to the state criminal justice reforms and enormous change in evidence collection, technology and discovery deadlines, putting more pressure on prosecutors and police. He also said more plea deals and fewer convictions "isn't necessarily a knock on the district attorney" but might indicate that the evidence was so overwhelming the defense decided to take the deal rather than take the case to trial.

According to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services' online dashboard that tracks adult criminal convictions by county, Nassau's prosecutors completed 1,933 convictions so far in 2025; 7,894 in 2024; 8,184 in 2023 and 8,569 in 2022. Pre-pandemic, those convictions were between 10,000 and 11,000 annually. 

"The laws changed drastically in a short period of time and then COVID hit and the world shut down," Ryder said. Then in 2022 "we opened the world back up" and "we had to get a handle on all of the changes that were put in place in 2020."  

Aloise said she believes a lower conviction rate undermines the work of the county's police force. She said the state laws have been in place for years and while advocating against them it's important to work to get the best outcome for families. 

Denise Rakamaric, of New Hyde Park, whose 18-year-old son, Nicolas, was sold a lethal dose of fentanyl by a Queens man, told Newsday she gives Aloise credit for getting federal prosecutors involved so the Queens man who sold her son a lethal does of fentanyl would go to jail. 

"She knew in December 2019 that cashless bail was wrong," Rakamaric said. "He was out in nine days but her fight and determination pushed the case to the federal level and he's currently serving a 15-year sentence." 

Rakamaric, a Republican, said she remembers being hard on Aloise, questioning whether she was doing enough as a prosecutor to bring justice for her family and get a dangerous dealer off the street. But after seeing Aloise take the case through to trial, she calls her "a very strong-willed human being who really cares about justice." 

Both draw on family

Donnelly and Aloise point to their families as a source of inspiration in pursuing a career in criminal justice.

Donnelly's father, Patrick Galligan, was the deputy chief court officer in district court. As a girl growing up in Franklin Square, she often visited the courthouses in Mineola. She enrolled at Fordham University for her undergraduate degree and had thought about becoming a police officer before her father encouraged her to go to law school. He died of brain cancer soon after, but Donnelly continued on to graduate from Fordham University School of Law.

Donnelly said as a mother of three adult children, including a son with a developmental disability, she wants to ensure communities, and particularly the roads, are safe for drivers.

"As a mother I'd always dread a late night and getting that knock on the door with officers standing there," she said.    

Aloise is the daughter of longtime Queens County Justice Michael Aloise, who is among a handful of judges allowed a special waiver to stay on the bench past the retirement age of 70. She also is a mother of younger children who is involved in the schools and coaches soccer, wanting the suburban way of life for them. She said she is passionate about ensuring all communities are engaged and protected. 

"I wanted to raise them in this environment, in this county," Aloise said. "I will work every single day to make sure my kids and my kids' friends and my friends' kids are all safe and comfortable. What motivated me every day on trial was understanding the integrity in the job, with an end goal of justice and to give a family peace and grace." 

Donnelly is endorsed by the Nassau Superior Officers Association, which represents the county's top police brass, and the Nassau Corrections' Officers Benevolent Association, as well as more than a dozen local police departments. 

Aloise is endorsed by the Nassau's largest union, the Civil Service Employees Association, the New York State Troopers PBA, the state Supreme Court Officer Association as well as Moms Demand Action and Eleanor's Legacy. 

While Donnelly had picked up endorsements from all four of Nassau County's law enforcement unions, the politically powerful police benevolent association, which represents the bulk of the county's police force, and the detectives did not endorse in this race. 

By Candice Ferrette

candice.ferrette@newsday.comcandiceferrette

Candice Ferrette covers Nassau County government and politics on Long Island. She has been a reporter at Newsday since 2011.