Lea Webb is a Binghamton native and former city councilwoman who won the 52nd Senate District in 2022, becoming the first Democrat to hold the seat in more than a century. Now in her second term, she represents Tompkins and Cortland counties and part of Broome, and faces Republican Mike Bolles on Nov. 3, 2026.
So who is Lea Webb, what has she passed, and what are the questions about her? The record runs through a barrier-breaking council career, a 2,397-vote first win, laws on trafficking and fracking, a foreclosure defense from a nonprofit she helped fund, and campaign payments to her sister.
Quick Facts
- Party
- Democratic (also on the Working Families line)
- Hometown
- Binghamton, N.Y.; lives in Johnson City
- Date of Birth
- Not listed in official biographies reviewed
- Current Position
- New York State Senator, 52nd District; Chair, Women's Issues Committee
- Background
- Binghamton City Council member; Binghamton University diversity educator; Citizen Action organizer
- In Office Since
- January 2023
EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
“I was born and raised here in Binghamton on the southside,” Webb told WBNG in 2023. She has described herself as “the daughter of two union members.” At 15 she began organizing her family church’s annual Thanksgiving meal, according to the Press & Sun-Bulletin, and she once wanted to be a pediatric surgeon.
She attended Binghamton public schools and is a first-generation graduate of SUNY Broome and Binghamton University, according to her Senate biography. Her sister, Andrea Webb, is her campaign treasurer. PagPol could not confirm her date of birth or whether she has a spouse or children.
CITY COUNCIL, 2007 TO 2015
In 2007 Webb won Binghamton’s 4th City Council District by defeating the council president, becoming the youngest person and first African American elected to the council, according to Spectrum News. “I really wanted to ignite the possibilities for change in folks, and so I wasn’t doing it by myself,” she said of that race.
She served two terms covering part of downtown and most of the North Side, and has cited the city’s fracking ban and equal pay legislation among her council work. Term limits ended her tenure in 2015. She then became a diversity education coordinator at Binghamton University and a health care organizer with Citizen Action of New York.
THE 2022 RACE
In January 2022 Citizen Action endorsed Webb for a new Southern Tier seat drawn in redistricting. Republican Sen. Fred Akshar, who held the old 52nd, ran for Broome County sheriff instead. In August she beat Ithaca attorney Leslie Danks Burke in the primary, 11,389 to 7,204, according to Ballotpedia. “We have a lot more in common across the district than folks may realize,” she told WSKG.
Her Republican opponent, former Binghamton Mayor Rich David, ran on crime. “In effect, those pro-criminal policies have made New York state less safe,” he said, according to Spectrum News. On Nov. 8 Webb won 53,851 to 51,454, according to certified 2022 results. David carried Broome and Cortland, while Webb won Tompkins by about 15,000 votes.
2024 winning margin, upstate and suburban Democratic state senators
WebbOther Democratic senators
Margin in percentage points between each Democratic winner and the runner-up in the 2024 general election. Webb’s 2022 win, by 2,397 votes, was much closer. Source: state Board of Elections certified results.
THE FIRST TERM, 2023 TO 2024
Webb took office in January 2023 as chair of the Women’s Issues Committee, after pledging to vote against Gov. Kathy Hochul’s chief judge nominee, Hector LaSalle, whom the Senate rejected. She voted for the Equal Rights Amendment, which passed 43 to 20, and in May for the budget bill that changed the bail law again, which passed 42 to 20.
That June she voted for the Clean Slate Act, which passed 37 to 25, and her bills to save the Ithaca Carshare and extend the Move Over law each passed 61 to 0. In September four of her bills requiring human trafficking information in lactation rooms at airports, bus terminals, and truck stops became Chapters 490, 492, 493, and 495.
The Second Tompkins County Courthouse in Ithaca. Tompkins County, which Webb carried by about 15,000 votes in 2022, anchors her district. (Photo: Jerrye and Roy Klotz, MD, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
In December her bill creating a task force on missing and murdered women and girls of color became Chapter 732, but Hochul vetoed her bill to help the Binghamton school district pay for Roosevelt Elementary. In January 2024 Webb announced more than $90,000 for local legal services, including $30,000 for the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, and Tompkins County Legislator Mike Sigler launched a challenge.
That March the Senate passed her ban on using carbon dioxide to frack oil and gas wells, 46 to 16, according to the Senate bill page. Four Republicans voted yes, and all 16 no votes came from Republicans. Sigler later said, “Albany is broken, and extreme politicians like Lea Webb are the core of the problem.”
On Nov. 5, 2024, Webb beat Sigler 79,175 to 58,429, about 57.5 percent, according to certified 2024 results. She narrowly carried Broome and lost Cortland. In December the fracking ban became Chapter 626 of 2024, and her maternal health care workgroup bill became Chapter 661.
THE SECOND TERM, 2025 TO 2026
In February 2025 her campaign began paying her sister $700 once or twice a month for professional services, payments that totaled more than $13,000 through June 2026. In May Webb voted for the budget bill that changed the state’s discovery law, which passed 41 to 21. In June she voted for the Medical Aid in Dying Act and the RAISE Act on artificial intelligence safety.
In October 2025 PHH Mortgage sued her over about $7,700 in missed payments on her Binghamton area home, according to FingerLakes1, citing the Ithaca Voice. She had bought the four-bedroom house for a reported $373,000 and attributed the missed payments to a costly family medical situation.
The clock tower on the Binghamton University campus in Vestal, where Webb graduated and later worked as a diversity education coordinator. (Photo: Greynol1, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
In March 2026 Bolles, a retired Binghamton firefighter, entered the race, and the Ithaca Voice reported that the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York was defending Webb for free in the foreclosure case. Bolles, who served 22 years in the Army, owns an apparel company, Triple 1st Response, according to Spectrum News.
“She gave a grant to this organization, and is now getting a private benefit from them,” said Rachael Fauss of Reinvent Albany, according to WSKG. Webb’s office said Legal Aid takes such cases “based on merit, not income,” and that she “intends to reimburse the organization.”
In June a Binghamton man was charged with a hate crime for an online threat against Webb. In August and September four of her local bills for Cortland and Tompkins counties became law, including a Cortland hotel tax measure and a Tompkins hunting extension. In October the Cornell Sun reported that she had repaid Legal Aid for its work on her case.
THE DISTRICT AND THE PARTY MATH
The 52nd District covers all of Tompkins and Cortland counties and the western part of Broome County, including Binghamton, according to her Senate office and WSKG. PagPol could not find official enrollment for the current district. Broome County, only part of which is in the district, has 43,398 active enrolled Democrats and 42,562 Republicans, according to 2026 state figures in PagPol’s Data Spine.
The Cortland County Courthouse and Courthouse Park in Cortland. All of Cortland County is in the 52nd District. (Photo: Andre Carrotflower, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Democrats hold 41 of the Senate’s 63 seats, one short of a two-thirds supermajority, and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee lists Webb’s seat as a target race. Her 2024 margin ranked fifth among seven upstate and suburban Democratic senators PagPol compared. For a neighboring senator’s record, see PagPol’s profile of Rachel May.
COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS
Webb chairs the Women’s Issues Committee and sits on Agriculture, Cities 2, Health, Higher Education, Mental Health, and Procurement and Contracts, according to her Senate biography. She also serves on the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources and the majority’s task force on minority- and women-owned businesses.
Her 2025 ratings reflect her votes: the New York League of Conservation Voters scored her 91 percent, while the state Conservative Party scored her 25 percent. Her office claimed 21 bills signed in her first year, a figure PagPol could not fully verify; it confirmed seven 2023 laws she sponsored in the Senate.
WHY SHE RAN AND WHAT SHE BELIEVES
“I ran for office to be a strong voice for working families in Central New York and the Southern Tier,” Webb said, according to the Ithaca Times. “I am an advocate for taxing the rich,” she told WSKG in October 2026, also backing universal child care and the New York Health Act.
She has made maternal health and abortion rights central themes. “Women of color are five times more likely, at least five times more likely, to die giving childbirth than white women,” she said in a 2024 WSKG interview. “Lack of access to safe, affordable housing is one of the biggest issues facing our region,” she said this year.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
PagPol could not retrieve 2026 fundraising, spending, or cash on hand for either candidate from the state Board of Elections. Both take public money. Through Oct. 13, the state’s program had approved $337,858 for Webb and $214,499 for Bolles, according to PagPol’s tally of the state’s matching funds reports.
Bolles received his first payment in June, while Webb’s began with $202,205 at the end of July. Fellow Democrats Pete Harckham and Pat Fahy each received $375,000 over the same period, and neighboring Sen. Rachel May received $372,915. PagPol could not confirm Webb’s top donors in official filings.
2026 public matching funds approved through Oct. 13, Democratic state senators
WebbOther Democratic senators
Public matching funds approved for each senator in the 2026 cycle through Oct. 13. Webb’s Republican opponent, Mike Bolles, was approved for $214,499 over the same period. Source: New York State Public Campaign Finance Board.
CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISM
The sharpest questions about Webb involve money. Beyond the Legal Aid case, her campaign’s payments to her sister came while she was behind on her mortgage. “The reporting on this showing a pattern with the campaign finance payments to a family member,” Fauss said, adding that her concern was the timing, not hiring a relative. Webb’s campaign said “friends and family can serve as campaign treasurers.”
Bolles’s campaign said Webb’s corruption had been “exposed again,” according to WIVT. PagPol found no formal ethics complaint or charge against her. Republicans have also attacked her on bail; Sigler said she votes “the way her NYC and Albany bosses tell her to vote.”
CLAIMS VERSUS THE RECORD
Webb’s maternal health and trafficking claims are backed by signed laws, though the maternal health law created a workgroup rather than new standards. Her carshare bill passed unanimously. She calls the carbon dioxide fracking ban bipartisan, and the Senate roll call backs her: four Republicans voted yes, though all 16 no votes came from Republicans.
Looking toward the Court Street Bridge and downtown Binghamton, Webb’s hometown, from the city’s West Side. (Photo: Tom Vazquez, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Her school aid bill for Binghamton was vetoed by a governor of her own party. Her office says Legal Aid took her case on merit, though the group’s guideline generally limits free help to households at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, and her Senate salary is $142,000. For another upstate senator’s record, see PagPol’s profile of Jeremy Cooney.
STATE COMPTROLLER AUDITS IN THE DISTRICT
A March 2026 comptroller Ithaca records audit found more than 4,000 City of Ithaca transactions, worth about $10 million, recorded late and reconciliations for about $51 million in accounts done late. A June 2026 audit found the Town of Union had not filed its 2024 annual financial report.
In Cortland County, a March 2026 audit of the Cincinnatus Fire Department found six bank accounts with no accounting records. In September the comptroller rated the Town of Cortlandville and the Village of Homer susceptible to fiscal stress, while the City of Ithaca and City of Cortland did not file in time to be scored.
LOOKING AHEAD
Webb faces Bolles, running on the Republican and Conservative lines, on Nov. 3, 2026. PagPol found no public polling. Bolles says “New York families are stretched thin by the mess Albany has created.” For more, visit PagPol’s Broome County page or subscribe to the Broome County newsletter.
