Your November 3 ballot: who is running, what they stand for, and where Speigletown votes

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, and the Rensselaer County Board of Elections has already published the official sample ballots for every town. We read the Schaghticoke ballot and both Brunswick ballots, since the hamlet sits across the town line. This guide covers what is on them, who the candidates are, and the practical parts: dates, sites and how to vote early or by mail.

We are not endorsing anyone. Backgrounds and positions below are drawn from the candidates’ own statements and public records, and we have linked our sources at the end so you can go deeper.

The dates that matter

Saturday, October 24: last day to register to vote, or to request an early-mail or absentee ballot by mail or online. Applications must be received by the county board by this date, not postmarked.
October 24 through November 1: nine days of early voting.
Monday, November 2: last day to request an early-mail or absentee ballot in person at the board.
Tuesday, November 3: Election Day, polls open 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mail ballots must be postmarked by today (and arrive by November 10), or you can hand one in at the board or any county poll site until 9 p.m.

Check your registration and find your poll site at the state’s voter lookup. Register or update your address at elections.ny.gov.

Where to vote

Early voting, any day October 24 to November 1, at any of the county’s three sites. The nearest is the Town of Brunswick Office Building, 336 Town Office Road, just down Route 40 and over. The others are 500 Federal Street in Troy and Schodack Town Hall in Castleton. Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 8 p.m. Monday and Wednesday, 9 to 5 Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Election Day poll sites depend on your election district, which is printed on your registration card. For the Town of Schaghticoke:

District 6, which covers most of the Speigletown hamlet: Speigletown Fire House, 146 Speigletown Road.
District 5, the River Road side: Pleasantdale Fire House, 1178 River Road.
District 1: Melrose Fire House, 784 Route 40.
District 7: Schaghticoke Town Hall, 290 Northline Drive.
Districts 2 and 3: Hoosic Valley Fire House at the Fairgrounds, 69 Stillwater Bridge Road.
District 4: Hemstreet Park Fire House, 133 South Linden Street.

If you are on the Brunswick side of the hamlet, the two districts closest to Route 40 are District 8 (Town of Brunswick Office Building, 336 Town Office Road) and District 10 (Keyes Lane Community Center, 18 Keyes Lane). The full list for both towns is on our voting page.

One correction worth making: the Board of Elections moved on July 7 to 116 Pinewoods Avenue, Troy, the former Susan Odell Taylor School. Older listings, including the town’s own voting page, still show 1600 Seventh Avenue. The phone is unchanged, 518-270-2990, weekdays 9 to 5.

What is on the ballot

Eleven contests in Schaghticoke, ten in Brunswick, and no questions or propositions; the back of the ballot is blank. Working down the columns:

Governor and Lieutenant Governor

Two tickets. Kathy Hochul and Adrienne Adams appear on the Democratic and Working Families lines. Bruce Blakeman and Todd Hood appear on the Republican, Conservative and “Vote Affordable” lines, the last an independent line the Blakeman campaign petitioned onto the ballot. No third ticket qualified; the Libertarian petition for Larry Sharpe was ruled invalid in June.

Kathy Hochul, the incumbent, has been governor since August 2021, when she succeeded Andrew Cuomo, and won a full term in 2022 by about six points, the closest governor’s race in the state since 1994. She is a Buffalo native and former Erie County clerk, congresswoman and lieutenant governor. Her running mate, Adrienne Adams, was speaker of the New York City Council from 2022 to 2025. Hochul’s campaign leans on affordability (a middle-class tax cut, inflation refund checks, expanded child care), public safety, and opposition to raising income taxes on high earners; she has also proposed a pause on large data-center construction to protect the power grid.

Bruce Blakeman is the Nassau County executive, elected in 2021 and re-elected in 2025, and before that a Hempstead town councilman, presiding officer of the Nassau legislature and Port Authority commissioner. He entered the race in December after Rep. Elise Stefanik withdrew, and carries President Trump’s endorsement. His running mate, Todd Hood, is the Madison County sheriff. Blakeman’s platform centers on cutting income, property and business taxes and utility costs, restoring cash bail and adding police funding, ending sanctuary policies, and reversing the data-center pause. A Siena poll in mid-August had Hochul ahead 49 to 39 among likely voters.

Comptroller

Thomas DiNapoli (Democratic, Working Families) is seeking a fifth full term as the state’s fiscal watchdog and sole trustee of the public pension fund, which has roughly doubled in size since he took the job in 2007. A former assemblyman from Long Island, he survived a primary challenge in June over the fund’s holdings. Joseph Hernandez (Republican, Conservative) is a Cuban-born biotech and venture investor making his first run for office; he proposes real-time audits of every state agency, a crackdown on Medicaid fraud, and more state investment upstate.

Attorney General

Letitia James (Democratic, Working Families), in office since 2019, is seeking a third term. Her office won the civil fraud case against President Trump’s businesses (the penalty was later thrown out on appeal, the finding of liability upheld) and the corruption case against the National Rifle Association’s leadership, and has filed dozens of suits against the current federal administration. She was indicted on federal mortgage-fraud charges last October; a judge dismissed the case in November over the appointment of the prosecutor, and two grand juries declined to re-indict. Her campaign priorities are public safety, consumer protection, health care and tenants.

Saritha Komatireddy (Republican, Conservative) is a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn who handled terrorism, cybercrime and fraud cases, served as chief of staff at the DEA, and clerked for Brett Kavanaugh when he was an appeals judge. She won the Republican nomination at the party’s February convention and has President Trump’s endorsement. She is running on a tough-on-crime platform: repeat offenders, fraud, and what she calls common-sense law enforcement.

Representative in Congress

Here the two towns split. Schaghticoke, and Brunswick Districts 5, 6 and 10, vote in the 20th District. The rest of Brunswick votes in the 19th.

In the 20th, Paul Tonko (Democratic, Working Families) of Amsterdam has held the seat since 2009 after 24 years in the Assembly; he is the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee and won 2024 with 61 percent. Ralph Ambrosio (Republican, Conservative) is a Delmar attorney and Navy veteran who worked as counsel to the State Police and as an assistant attorney general under Dennis Vacco, and ran for Albany County district attorney in 2024. His five stated priorities are the cost of living, public safety and the border, quality of life and natural resources, government accountability, and “challenging the establishment.”

In the 19th, Josh Riley (Democratic, Working Families), an Endicott native and former Senate Judiciary Committee counsel, unseated Marc Molinaro in 2024 and sits on the Agriculture and Science committees. Peter Oberacker (Republican, Conservative) is the state senator for the 51st District, a food scientist and former Otsego County legislator who won a June primary for the nomination.

State Senate, 43rd District

The district is all of Rensselaer County plus most of Washington County and a slice of Albany County. Jake Ashby (Republican, Conservative) of Castleton is the incumbent, in the Senate since 2023 after four years in the Assembly and a term on the county legislature. He is an Army Reserve veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and an occupational therapist, and his legislation has focused on veterans and first-responder mental health, mental-health courts, and a proposed $1,000 “baby bonus.”

Devin Lander (Democratic, Working Families) of Averill Park is the New York State Historian at the State Museum and a former legislative policy director in the Assembly. He is running on school funding, infrastructure, clean air and water, affordability and utility bills, and on the argument that a senator in the majority party can deliver more for the district. Democrats now outnumber Republicans in the district’s enrollment.

State Assembly, 107th District

The 107th covers most of Rensselaer County outside Troy and Rensselaer, with pieces of Washington, Columbia and Albany counties. Scott Bendett (Republican, Conservative) of Averill Park has held the seat since 2023. He founded Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and runs a real estate investment company, calls himself “a citizen legislator,” and has pushed increased library aid, more state aid to municipalities, and fewer regulations on small business. Chloe Pierce (Democratic, Working Families) is a lobbyist making her second run after finishing about six points behind Bendett in 2024; she won a June primary and argues the district needs representation that pushes back on federal cuts rather than “maintaining that status quo.”

Supreme Court Justice, 3rd Judicial District

Vote for up to two. Amy Joyce and Jennifer Sober, both Democrats, are the only candidates for the two 14-year seats, so both are effectively elected. Joyce is an Albany County Family Court judge and acting Supreme Court justice. Sober is Rensselaer County’s County Court judge, elected in 2017 after years as a prosecutor and defense attorney in Troy and Albany; if she moves up, her county seat would come open next year. Supreme Court justices are nominated at party conventions, not primaries, which is why the ballot looks the way it does.

District Attorney

Mary Pat Donnelly (Democratic), Rensselaer County’s district attorney since 2019 and president of the state district attorneys’ association, is unopposed. Republicans did not field a candidate.

Town of Schaghticoke

All three town races are uncontested, each candidate appearing on the Republican and Conservative lines: Timothy Salisbury for supervisor, Emily Calhoun for town clerk, and Jaime Thomas for town justice. Salisbury and Calhoun are the incumbents. Brunswick voters have one town race, also uncontested: Alicia Saunders (Conservative) for the unexpired term of town clerk.

What is not on the ballot

No propositions, statewide or local. If you see references to “two statewide proposals,” those were 2023.
No U.S. Senate race in New York this year.
No county executive, sheriff, clerk or legislature seats for this area; those were decided in 2023 and 2025.
The fire district. Fire commissioners are elected separately, by state law on the second Tuesday of December, this year December 8, with polls open at least 6 to 9 p.m. Watch for the notice from your fire district.

Voting by mail

New York now offers early voting by mail to any registered voter, no excuse needed, alongside the traditional absentee ballot. Apply through the county board or the state’s online portal by October 24, or in person by November 2. Return the ballot by mail postmarked by November 3, or drop it at the board or any poll site in the county by 9 p.m. on Election Day.

We will update this guide if anything on the ballot changes, and we will publish the town-level results the morning after.

Update, October 3

The NY-20 debate is Thursday, October 15 at 7 p.m. The Upstate Debate Consortium (Times Union, WAMC, WMHT and WNYT) will host Paul Tonko and Ralph Ambrosio for an hour at WMHT’s studios in Troy, with questions submitted by the public. Check wmht.org for the broadcast and stream. The consortium also scheduled NY-19 for October 22 at WNYT, though Josh Riley has declined that one.
A second NY-20 debate, October 21 at 5:30 p.m. on CBS6. Added October 9: CBS6 reported on October 6 that it will host its own Tonko and Ambrosio debate, airing Wednesday, October 21 at 5:30 p.m. Format and streaming details were not given.
Siena’s September 23 poll has Hochul over Blakeman 50 to 41 among likely voters (49 to 39 in August), James over Komatireddy 52 to 39, and DiNapoli over Hernandez 56 to 33. Two numbers with a local echo: voters said 51 to 30 that President Trump’s endorsement hurts Blakeman, and 63 to 25 that they oppose a large data center in their own area.
Assembly 107 by the numbers, from the Times Union’s October 1 profile of the rematch: Bendett won in 2024 by about 4,300 votes of 78,472 cast. Enrollment as of February was 33,055 Democrats, 28,964 Republicans and 3,472 Conservatives, yet Republicans have held the seat six elections running. Bendett opposes the state’s electric school bus mandate and backs the county’s lawsuit over the state ban on 287(g) immigration agreements; Pierce calls that suit a waste of taxpayer money and is running on a gas tax cap, utility oversight and child care.
Early voting details are unchanged: October 24 to November 1, nearest site the Brunswick Town Office Building.

Sources: Rensselaer County Board of Elections sample ballots for Schaghticoke and Brunswick and its 2026 general election candidates list; the NYS Board of Elections 2026 Political Calendar for deadlines; the county’s elections page for the new address and early-voting sites and hours; the NYS GIS election-district and poll-site layers and the county poll-site list for Election Day locations. Candidate backgrounds from their campaign sites and from reporting by Spectrum News, City & State, WAMC, the Times Union, the Daily Gazette and the Siena Research Institute. Poll sites and hours are the county’s to change; confirm with the board or the state lookup before you go.