MONROE COUNTY, N.Y. -- For the first time in 12 years, the Monroe County executive seat had no incumbent in the race as current Executive Maggie Brooks is term-limited and could not run.
Republican Cheryl Dinolfo, current county clerk, won by more than 56 percent of the vote, beating out Democrat Sandra Frankel's 41 percent and Green Party candidate Rajesh Barnabas' 3 percent.
Dinolfo said she's attended more than 600 events since she announced she was running for county executive.
"I think they heard the message, they love the positive message for a bright future for everyone in this community and they responded with their votes. I'm ready to get in there and get the job done," said Dinolfo. "We have to focus on jobs and economic development, they go hand-in-hand with our property taxes. The first thing I"m going to do is assemble my job creation leadership forum."
Dinolfo received 69,319 votes, Frankel received 50,640 votes and Barnabas received 3,321 votes.
"Bitersweet, while you hope to win whenever you run for office, at the same time, I'm so proud of the campaign we ran. That's the upside. We really did a good job, I think, in getting our message to the community about the critical needs that affect people's lives," said Frankel.
Despite receiving the fewest amount of votes, Barnabas says he still made an impact on the race.
"We got a lot of people at least thinking about going to vote," Barnabas said. "A lot of them were disenfranchised because of criminal records or different reasons and hadn't even registered. It was kind of a 'get out the vote' push, so I'm proud of what we did today."