A dead man won the GOP primary for an upstate Assembly seat Tuesday — while in Manhattan, Alice Cancel, Sheldon Silver’s handpicked would-be successor, was trounced in her bid to win the Lower East Side seat of the disgraced former Assembly speaker.
The victory from beyond the grave was the strangest twist on New York’s state primary night — as Rochester-area Assemblyman Bill Nojay won renomination because his name remained on the ballot after he committed suicide on Sept. 9 Friday.
In the final unofficial tally, the late legislator — who had strong Republican Party backing — had 2,736 votes, or about 60 percent, to opponent Rick Milne’s 1,763, or about 39 percent.
Nojay, 59, a popular conservative radio host, shot himself in Rochester Riverside Cemetery hours before he was to appear in US District Court to face fraud charges.
Republican leaders who wanted the chance to handpick his replacement on the general-election ballot this fall called on voters to vote for Nojay.
“Voters gave a final thank-you to Bill for the good job he did,” said Monroe County Republican Chairman Bill Reilich.
The last deceased incumbent to win a a race was Manhattan Congressman Ted Weiss, who died of heart failure three days before the Democratic primary in 1992.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan’s 65th Assembly District on the Lower East Side, Cancel, a former Silver aide who won a special election in April to temporarily fill the disgraced speaker’s seat following his corruption conviction, was soundly defeated.
Yuh-Line Niou won the six-way primary with about 32 percent of the vote. Cancel, handpicked with the support of Silver’s political club earlier this year came in fourth with 12 percent.
Two other city Assembly incumbents were defeated.
In the 72nd AD in Washington Heights, Carmen De La Rosa upset incumbent Guillermo Linares 53-37 percent.
And in the 30th District in western Queens, covering Maspeth, Woodside, Astoria and Middle Village, insurgent Brian Barnwell easily defeated incumbent Margaret Markey, 63 to 36 perrcent.
Barnwell accused Markey of being a no-show in the community.
Elsewhere, convicted felon Hirman Monserrate’s comeback bid fizzled in a nail-biter race for Democratic district leader in Queens 35th AD.
Incumbent George Dixon defeated Monserrate with 775 votes, or 51.8 percent, to 718 votes, or 48 percent, for the challenger, with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
Monserrate, a former state senator and city councilman, was convicted of stealing funds from a nonprofit and of slashing his girlfriend (Post flashback, far left).
Meanwhile, union organizer Marisol Alcantara won a spirited Democratic primary to replace Adriano Espaillat as state senator in the 31th District representing the Upper West Side and northern Manhattan. Espaillat is now a Democratic nominee for Congress.