ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Days after killing himself, a vocal advocate for gun rights and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has won a New York primary election.
Assemblyman Bill Nojay was facing a fraud trial in Cambodia and reportedly under FBI scrutiny when he went to his family’s cemetery plot in Rochester and shot himself in front of an arriving police officer on Friday.
The defeat Tuesday of challenger Richard Milne coupled with a quirk in state election law means that local GOP leaders, who encouraged voters to choose Nojay despite his death, get to pick someone to take on Democrat Barbara Baer in November. Nojay’s Republican-leaning district in the Legislature’s lower chamber covers parts of suburban Rochester and the Finger Lakes region.
Milne says he disappointed but hopes the leaders will tap him.