ALBANY — Upstate Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk scored a major upset to win a key state Senate seat yesterday after a court-ordered count of 99 ballots that had been challenged.
Her win gives Democrats 33 of the Senate’s 63 seats.
But because the GOP forged an unprecedented power-sharing coalition with the five-member Independent Democratic Conference, led by Jeff Klein of The Bronx — and with Brooklyn Democrat Simcha Felder aligned with the Republicans — Tkaczyk and the other 26 Democrats will remain in the minority.
Tkaczyk won by an unofficial 18votes — out of more than 134,000 cast — over George Amedore in a mostly rural district gerrymandered by the GOP for Amedore’s advantage in last year’s redistricting.
Tkaczyk, a relative unknown running against a state assemblyman, was aided by half a million dollars from billionaire heir Jonathan Soros to advertise her support for taxpayer financing of elections and other campaign-finance reforms.
Klein and Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos, of Long Island, say Tkaczyk’s win won’t affect their arrangement.
But it could ultimately help Democrats regain control of the Senate in two years.