Leslie Danks Burke

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Leslie Danks Burke
Image of Leslie Danks Burke
Elections and appointments
Last election

August 23, 2022

Education

Law

The University of Chicago

Personal
Religion
Catholic
Profession
Attorney
Contact

Leslie Danks Burke (Democratic Party) ran for election to the New York State Senate to represent District 52. She lost in the Democratic primary on August 23, 2022.

Biography

Leslie Danks Burke was born in Denver, New York. Burke earned a J.D. from the University of Chicago. Burke's career experience includes working as an attorney.[1]

Elections

2022

See also: New York State Senate elections, 2022

General election

General election for New York State Senate District 52

Lea Webb defeated Richard David in the general election for New York State Senate District 52 on November 8, 2022.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Lea Webb
Lea Webb (D / Working Families Party)
 
51.1
 
53,851
Image of Richard David
Richard David (R / Conservative Party)
 
48.8
 
51,454
 Other/Write-in votes
 
0.1
 
86

Total votes: 105,391
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for New York State Senate District 52

Lea Webb defeated Leslie Danks Burke in the Democratic primary for New York State Senate District 52 on August 23, 2022.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Lea Webb
Lea Webb
 
60.6
 
11,389
Image of Leslie Danks Burke
Leslie Danks Burke
 
38.3
 
7,204
 Other/Write-in votes
 
1.1
 
200

Total votes: 18,793
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Republican primary election

The Republican primary election was canceled. Richard David advanced from the Republican primary for New York State Senate District 52.

Conservative Party primary election

The Conservative Party primary election was canceled. Richard David advanced from the Conservative Party primary for New York State Senate District 52.

Working Families Party primary election

The Working Families Party primary election was canceled. Lea Webb advanced from the Working Families Party primary for New York State Senate District 52.

2020

See also: New York State Senate elections, 2020

General election

General election for New York State Senate District 58

Incumbent Thomas O'Mara defeated Leslie Danks Burke in the general election for New York State Senate District 58 on November 3, 2020.

Candidate
%
Votes
Image of Thomas O'Mara
Thomas O'Mara (R / Conservative Party / Independence Party)
 
56.3
 
70,848
Image of Leslie Danks Burke
Leslie Danks Burke (D / Working Families Party / Serve America Movement Party) Candidate Connection
 
43.7
 
54,976
 Other/Write-in votes
 
0.0
 
15

Total votes: 125,839
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Democratic primary election

The Democratic primary election was canceled. Leslie Danks Burke advanced from the Democratic primary for New York State Senate District 58.

Republican primary election

The Republican primary election was canceled. Incumbent Thomas O'Mara advanced from the Republican primary for New York State Senate District 58.

Conservative Party primary election

The Conservative Party primary election was canceled. Incumbent Thomas O'Mara advanced from the Conservative Party primary for New York State Senate District 58.

Independence Party primary election

The Independence Party primary election was canceled. Incumbent Thomas O'Mara advanced from the Independence Party primary for New York State Senate District 58.

Serve America Movement Party primary election

The Serve America Movement Party primary election was canceled. Leslie Danks Burke advanced from the Serve America Movement Party primary for New York State Senate District 58.

Working Families Party primary election

The Working Families Party primary election was canceled. Leslie Danks Burke advanced from the Working Families Party primary for New York State Senate District 58.

Endorsements

To view Burke's endorsements in the 2020 election, please click here.

2016

See also: New York State Senate elections, 2016

Elections for the New York State Senate took place in 2016. The primary election took place on September 13, 2016, and the general election was held on November 8, 2016. The filing deadline for major party candidates was July 14, 2016. The filing deadline for independent candidates was August 23, 2016.

Incumbent Thomas O'Mara defeated Leslie Danks Burke in the New York State Senate District 58 general election.[2][3]

New York State Senate, District 58 General Election, 2016
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Republican Green check mark transparent.png Thomas O'Mara Incumbent 54.66% 63,270
     Democratic Leslie Danks Burke 45.34% 52,488
Total Votes 115,758
Source: New York Board of Elections


Leslie Danks Burke ran unopposed in the New York State Senate District 58 Democratic primary.[4][5]

New York State Senate, District 58 Democratic Primary, 2016
Party Candidate
    Democratic Green check mark transparent.png Leslie Danks Burke  (unopposed)

Danks Burke also ran on the Working Families and Women's Equality Party tickets.
Incumbent Thomas O'Mara ran unopposed in the New York State Senate District 58 Republican primary.[4][5]

New York State Senate, District 58 Republican Primary, 2016
Party Candidate
    Republican Green check mark transparent.png Thomas O'Mara Incumbent (unopposed)

O'Mara also ran on the Conservative, Independence, and Reform Party tickets.

2012

See also: New York's 23rd Congressional District elections, 2012

Danks Burke ran in the 2012 election for the U.S. House to represent New York's 23rd District. She sought the nomination on the Democratic ticket[6] and lost to county legislator Nate Shinagawa in the June 26 primary.[7]

The National Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took an interest in the race, citing the three challengers as evidence of opposition to the Republican incumbent.[8]

Local Democratic officials and organizations split their endorsements mainly between Danks Burke and Shinagawa.[9]

All three Democratic challengers supported the Affordable Care Act and opposed hydrofracking. In regards to the economy, Danks Burke and Shinagawa wanted to tax corporations more heavily, and Dobson wanted to link education and technical training.[8]

U.S. House, New York District 23 Democratic Primary, 2012
Candidate Vote % Votes
Green check mark transparent.pngNate Shinagawa 55.5% 5,697
Leslie Burke 37.4% 3,841
Melissa Dobson 7.1% 727
Total Votes 10,265

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Leslie Danks Burke did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.

2020

Candidate Connection

Leslie Danks Burke completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Danks Burke's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

I am an attorney and a longtime advocate for education, healthcare, and rural economic development. I am the daughter of farmers and a mother who, together with my husband, are raising two children in the NY 58th community. I am a Democrat, and I previously ran for State Senate in the 58th in 2016, outraising incumbent Tom O'Mara by over $200,000 and receiving more voter support from outside my party than any other challenger to a sitting incumbent that year - on either side. Since 2016, I have remained a powerful advocate for local community engagement and honest government.
  • Leslie sees that our taxes are through the roof, yet young people are leaving our region because our schools are underfunded, healthcare costs are crippling, and jobs are scarce. Leslie's fighting to get a real seat at the table for our beautiful Southern Tier and Finger Lakes region by standing strong for a bright future here.
  • Even while we're getting shortchanged, our current Senator won't even work full time for us; he makes over $100,000 at his side job at a lobbying firm that represents polluters. He is doing well while the rest of us don't have a voice in Albany.
  • Our region never fully recovered from the last recession, and in the aftermath of the pandemic, we need a full-time Senator like Leslie who actually has a seat at the table to get us what we need.
Education: Every child deserves a quality education, whether they're born into a rich or a poor zip code - but New York shortchanges the poor zip codes, with rural schools getting hit particularly hard. It's time for someone to bring the message to Albany that underfunding upstate education only sinks our economy lower. Every dollar invested in our children's education more than pays for itself down the road.

Agriculture: If you eat food, farms matter to you. Yet Albany makes it very hard for farms to survive and that hurts our entire region. I grew up in Denver, but my family moved to the farm after I went to college. I've watched how massive corporate agriculture has shut down one family farm after another, turning farmers into cogs in the machine of corporate profits. And Albany is passively watching while this monolith starts to decimate our family farms here.

Healthcare: New York's Medicaid program is the most expensive in the country. At the same time, this bloated program leaves our families - one in four of us is on Medicaid - with broken health care. What's going on here, when we spend more than anyone else - yet get less? The outrageous costs drive families and small businesses under. Every farmer, freelancer, independent contractor and entrepreneur faces the problem of skyrocketing health care and prescription drug costs, and it's choking us.

Let's pass the New York Health Act - universal health care that gives access to every resident of the state, and holds dr
I hope to carry on the legacy of leaders like Connie Cook, this region's Assemblywoman who in the early 1970s made sure New York legalized abortion three years before Roe v. Wade became federal law. Despite this history of local leadership, New York itself was behind and needed leadership to move state law into line with federal law. I want to follow in the footsteps of great women who were able to bring desperately needed change to their regions without having to hold federal office to make it happen.
Corruption doesn't care what side of the aisle you're on, it just wants our democratic republic to grind to a halt. There are laws on the books that let elected officials behave unethically, and that behavior sucks our tax dollars away from us. It is so important as an elected official to embrace transparency - in all areas of responsibility, from voting to finance. Hand in hand with transparency - honesty and growth are necessary for electeds. So many are afraid to say that they once held an idea that they no longer believe to be true. We are in an age of rapid development and learning - officials must be able to reevaluate their stances as new information becomes available, without being resistant to change, or pretending that they once thought differently.
I understand hard work. Even before I graduated law school, I was working on cases for people the system left out. When I started practicing law, I took human rights and civil rights litigation, many pro bono. For me, this is deeply personal, and I stand up every day for my kids and all of this region's children because I want them to find a bright future for them and their families in the 58th district. I'm a lawyer, a mom, a taxpayer, and I'm running for State Senate because I've had enough. I know that change is possible because I've seen people step up over and over to demand a rightful spot at the table, and I'm with the people.
I believe that everyone should be represented in our government and politics, and to make that happen, we need people from all walks of life to hold elected positions. I'm running against an incumbent leader who has been in the legislature for 16 years and has little record of achievement for this region to show for it. I believe it is past time that local people, who likely don't have a background in politics or government, but are passionate about their communities and being the change they want to see, step up to run for office.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

2016

Danks Burke's campaign website highlighted the following issues:

Agriculture

Leslie is the daughter of farmers. She knows how taxes can weigh down a family farm, and she knows how regulations are tilting the field in favor of big ag and big energy corporations. Our policies should reward farmers for being good stewards of the land, air, and water. We need more food hubs, and more processing facilities and commercial kitchens sized for local farms. Leslie will support the farms that are the backbone of our agriculture economy and our tourism industry.

Local Businesses and Jobs

Even though most of us work for local businesses, New York State still prioritizes downstate financial firms, and small business taxes are too high. Local businesses deserve support for doing the right thing, and Leslie will fight to get working people and our families a common sense minimum wage, better child care assistance, and paid family leave. Leslie is focused on safeguarding the growing small businesses in our region, and on building toward job opportunities of tomorrow by working with our high schools, community colleges and other higher-ed institutions to produce the graduates to fill these jobs.

Schools

As our Senator, Leslie will stand up for our teachers and oppose over-testing. She will fight to get more resources into the classrooms so all our children have access to education that will to prepare them for 21st century jobs, including science, math and vocational education.

Land Use and Conservation

A long-time environmental advocate, Leslie will continue to fight for common-sense policies that protect our public health, our economy, and our land for generations to come.

Health Care and Pay Equity

Leslie has fought for access to quality healthcare for thousands of men, women, and families as Founding Chairperson of the political advocacy network for Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes, and a member of the statewide board of directors of Planned Parenthood Advocates of New York (PPANY). To get women to the political table, Leslie founded and served as President of a 14-county-wide networking organization that encourages more women to run for local elected office.

Leslie has led the charge in our region to empower more women in health care and economic life, because she knows that when a community invests in women, the community prospers. Leslie is dedicated to making this true across New York State.[10]

—Leslie Danks Burke[11]

Endorsements

2016

In 2016, Danks Burke's endorsements included the following:[12]

  • CWA Local 1104
  • CWA Local 1111
  • Eleanor's Legacy
  • NYS Young Democrats
  • NYSUT
  • UAW
  • SEIU 32BJ
  • SEIU Local 200
  • Emily's List
  • Senator Chuck Schumer
  • Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

See also


External links

Footnotes


Current members of the New York State Senate
Leadership
Majority Leader:Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Minority Leader:Robert Ortt
Senators
District 1
District 2
District 3
District 4
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District 8
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John Liu (D)
District 17
District 18
District 19
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District 21
District 22
District 23
District 24
District 25
District 26
District 27
District 28
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J. Rivera (D)
District 34
District 35
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District 38
District 39
District 40
District 41
District 42
District 43
District 44
District 45
District 46
District 47
District 48
District 49
District 50
District 51
District 52
Lea Webb (D)
District 53
District 54
District 55
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District 58
District 59
District 60
District 61
Sean Ryan (D)
District 62
District 63
Democratic Party (41)
Republican Party (22)