Ruben Wills, 39, a young political insider who worked for State Sen. Shirley Huntley, was elected City Council Member in a special election in Queens' District 28 on Tuesday. Wills beat out six other candidates to take the seat formerly held by Councilman Thomas White, Jr. who died in August.

It's the day after Andrew Cuomo was elected Governor of New York State, and New Yorkers are hoping he'll hit the ground running. On the Brian Lehrer Show, listeners flooded the phones with '30 second postcards' for the Governor-Elect. Popular issues were hydrofracking,gerrymandering, marriage equality, and job creation. 

In what turned out to be one of the closest races in New York State, in the wee hours of the morning, Democrat Thomas DiNapoli narrowly beat Wall Street mogul Harry Wilson and retained his seat in the State Comptroller's office.

Sen. Charles Schumer says, "the best is yet to come."

On the national and state level, this political season has been rich enough in terms of outlier candidates and weird political shenanigans, but the local race in City Council District 28 (Queens) also has a cast of characters worth noting. They're all running in the non-partisian special election for City Council Member on November 2, due to the death of Councilman Thomas White, Jr. this August.

Candidates aren't the only choices voters will have to make on the (increasingly confusing) New York ballot. Term limits, one of the most controversial legacies of Mayor Bloomberg, are back with a vengence—do you support reimposing a two term limit on city elected officials?  Plus, you'll need to say yay or nay to a seven-tiered proposal to revise the City Charter.

As Election Day draws closer, immigrant advocacy organizations are ramping up their "get out the vote" campaigns.

-Michael Long, Conservative Party of New York State Chairman, on The Brian Lehrer Show

There's icing on the cake this year for the political party that takes control over the state legislature: the power to redraw districts for the State Senate, State Assembly and U.S. Congress that will last for the next decade. At the end of this year, the U.S. Census Bureau will have counted the total number of residents--and since New York's population has slightly decreased, it's expected the state will lose two seats in the House.