Schneiderman defeats Rice in AG primary

ALBANY - State Sen. Eric Schneiderman has won the five-way Democratic primary for state attorney general.

With 97.5 percent of the statewide vote tallied this morning, Schneiderman of Manhattan was leading Kathleen Rice, the Nassau district attorney, by about 13,500 votes.

In Nassau, with 97 percent of precincts reporting, Rice won 23,593 votes, compared to 10,299 for Schneiderman.

In Suffolk, with all precincts reporting, Rice won 14,918 votes, with Schneiderman getting 5,944. 

Experts said Schneiderman appeared to have done well with liberals and minority groups in New York City while Rice racked up votes on Long Island and among women.

"I am honored, I am humbled and I'm revved up and ready to go," Schneiderman said in his acceptance speech at 1:10 a.m. Wednesday.

Rice did not speak to supporters gathered for a party in Carle Place, preferring instead to issue a concession statement. She said, "Running for statewide office has indeed been like running a marathon, but I'm privileged to have a job I love, and tomorrow I'll be at work in the district attorney's office fighting Nassau County's most serious problems with more energy than ever."

Trailing Schneiderman and Rice were former federal prosecutor Sean Coffey, Assemb. Richard Brodsky of Westchester and former state insurance superintendent Eric Dinallo, each of whom had sought to win votes upstate.

Days before the primary, Schneiderman and Rice unleashed negative advertising about each other, and Coffey, who grew up in Hempstead Village, again tapped his fortune to fund his campaign, bringing the total loans to $5 million.

"The candidates agreed on the issues, so they tried to stand out by talking about themselves," said James Tierney of the National State Attorneys General Program, a research group at Columbia University Law School. "Schneiderman was the progressive; Rice, the woman DA from Long Island; Coffey, the outsider who won big cases in federal court."

However, Tierney and others said the Democratic nominee will likely be portrayed as soft on crime by Republican Dan Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney.

"He is completely unknown to the electorate so he can be whoever he wants to be," said Tierney, a former Maine attorney general. "The Democratic candidate has staked out positions that will be hard to walk away from in the general election."

Donovan kicks off his general election bid Wednesday with an endorsement by former New York City Mayor Edward Koch.

Both Schneiderman and Rice had hoped for an endorsement by Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee and current attorney general. Rice reportedly was encouraged to run by Cuomo because she would help to balance the party's statewide ticket. But Cuomo chose to remain neutral.

Rice, in campaign ads and appearances, emphasized her efforts to combat drunken driving and gang violence in Nassau. Schneiderman touted his fight to repeal the Rockefeller-era drug laws and to improve legal representation for the poor.

Experts said the Democratic nominee could be undermined by Cuomo's popularity and the desire of some voters to have a Republican in one of the statewide offices.