Jackie Salvatore makes New York history as first Black woman elected county sheriff
Salvatore, 60, served in the New York State Police for 28 years. She rose to the rank of detail commander and ran the State Police Employee Assistance Program, which offers psychological counseling to officers and their families. After leaving the State Police, she entered the private sector, running operations for United Airlines at the Albany International Airport and managing a literary agency, she said in an interview. She listed the Employee Assistance Program as her proudest accomplishment in her law enforcement career.
Salvatore was Sheriff Donald Krapf’s pick for undersheriff in 2021 and campaigned alongside him that year, even though the position is appointed and does not appear on the ballot. Krapf ran as an independent, but was backed by the Columbia County Democratic Committee.
…Columbia County has become increasingly Democratic in recent years. The number of registered Democrats surpassed registered Republicans around 2015 and has continued to rise as people relocate from more urban areas, especially New York City and its environs. The county now has a Democratic sheriff and a district attorney, and the balance of county government may turn Democratic when all the votes are tallied. Turnout was high for an off-year election, with 43% of the county’s 49,416 registered voters casting ballots, according to the Columbia County Board of Elections.
https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/news/article/jackie-salvatore-columbia-county-sheriff-election-21138741.php
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That has been a very divided county which until about 2008 or so was dominated by an old boy network. The economy was heavily reliant on the prison system. At one point they had 500 prison guards for 300 inmates at Hudson Correctional. Now they have two kid prisons -- Brookwood Secure is the junior high school of high security prisons and Hudson Correctional is now 16 and 17YOs.
Driven by changes in the city of Hudson, the county has tipped toward Democrats. Hudson is an Amtrak stop for the line out of NYC and starting with an influx of gay antique dealers in the 1990s, became home to mature couples leaving the high cost of living in NYC. The big shift came after the 2008 crash as people sought lower COL and more recently, Covid and remote work pushed rents in Hudson up to about 85% of what you would pay in Manhattan, eg a 1-bedroom apt is $1900 to $3000.
Meanwhile the rest of the county is a very different age-in-place, fixed and low income demographic that leans more rural republican and blames "Citiots" (meaning "idiots from the City of NY"
for rising prices and home values.
As the most high profile of county employees, Salvatore has her work cut out for her but she has broad support as we see in these election results.
