County Executive P.J. Wendel and Greg Carlson, County Clerk-Elect are pictured Tuesday at the Chautauqua Harbor Hotel in Celoron. PJ photo by Michael Zabrodsky

Republicans will continue to hold the top seats in Chautauqua County.

On Tuesday, County Executive PJ Wendel was re-elected, while Gregory Carlson was elected as County Clerk. Also, David Foley, who ran unopposed, was re-elected as county court judge. All three are Republicans, as are the county sheriff, Family Court judge and district attorney.

The Chautauqua County Legislature will also remain in control of Republicans, although they lost their super-majority hold.

“We did give up two seats on the legislature. I’m excited about where I’m at. There’s going to be some changes. It’s going to be a unique time,” Wendel said shortly after the results were in. “It is what it is. It’s not the end of the world. We’re OK. We work across the aisle.”

Wendel has served as county executive since he was appointed to the seat in 2020 when former county executive George Borrello was elected to the state senate.

Unofficially Wendel had 58.75% of the vote with 12,232 votes cast compared to challenger Tom Carle who received 8,035 votes.

Carle ran on the Democratic and Working Families lines, while Wendel ran on the Republican and Conservative lines.

Carle thanked voters who supported him. “I’m happy with the campaign that I was able to put together. We achieved some of the goals that we had such as helping people down the ticket become elected and to increase the number of county legislators,” he said.

COUNTY CLERK

Current County Clerk Larry Barmore chose not to seek re-election.

Running for the seat were Gregory Carlson, who ran on the Republican and Conservative lines, against Gregory Krauza, who ran on the Democratic and Working Families lines.

Carlson is the director of the Veterans Affairs Services for Chautauqua County.

Carlson had about 55% of the vote. Unofficially, Carlson received 11,465 votes, while Krauza received 8,377.

“First and foremost, I feel very blessed that the voters trusted me to take this position. I plan to work very hard for the voters, be very visible, serve everybody, be very responsive to the public,” Carlson said.

Due to a change in state election law, both the executive and clerk’s seats will be up in three years, instead of four. The state moved a number of local elections to even years.