The smell of fried dough wafted down Main Street at the Farmingdale Street Fair on a sunny Saturday afternoon, as Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano received some good news.

Pulled aside by campaign aide Brian Nevin, Mangano went over talking points for an upcoming street-side interview with News 12, where he would be quizzed about the latest development in his race with former County Executive Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) – a new Newsday/News 12/Sienna College poll that had him out in front by 17 points.

Minutes later, in front of the camera with fair-goers streaming past on either side of him, Mangano portrayed the numbers as a sign of support from voters. And though he cautioned that the figures that count would not come until election day, he allowed himself a note of confidence.

“Everybody can spin it the way they want, but listen – it’s better to be ahead than behind,” Mangano said.

The increasingly heated race between Mangano and Suozzi, who Mangano unseated by a razor-thin margin in 2009, is now in its last weeks.

Where Mangano was a challenger four years ago, and benefitted from what was an admittedly unfocused campaign effort from Suozzi, this year’s campaign so far has centered on a back-and-forth about each candidate’s term in office – a difference Mangano said he welcomed at a campaign stop earlier Saturday morning.

“This campaign is easier to distinguish the candidates’ policies,” Mangano said, standing next to a collection stand at a Knights of Pythias food drive in Massapequa. “I think in some respects it makes it easier for voters to make a choice, if they look at the facts and the record.”

The day’s campaigning went smoothly for Mangano, who shook hands, posed for pictures and chatted with residents at the Farmingdale street fair among a crowd of supporters.

Mangano, a Bethpage native who first won elected office as a county legislator in 1995, touted his freezing of the county property tax levy, criticized Suozzi for a tax hike he made to address a fiscal crisis after taking office in 2002 and listed a range of policies he said had bettered Nassau’s economy, including increasing access to aid for small businesses, attracting companies with county Industrial Development Agency tax abatements and converting disused office buildings into apartments.

But Mangano’s handling of Nassau’s finances has also been the subject of a stream of criticism – both from Suozzi and members of the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the state agency which took control of Nassau’s finances in 2011 and whose director George Marlin has made a habit of slamming the county’s financial performance.

Marlin’s latest salvo came after the county released its financial plan for 2014-2017. The county’s figures showed ongoing but reduced deficits, while Marlin said NIFA analysis found much greater budget gaps and that the county had “blatantly and without remorse or explanation” failed to meet the agency’s requirements.

When asked about the criticism, Mangano downplayed the projections as a rough and very conservative assessment of the county’s financial risks.

“They’re good to talk about but they rarely come to fruition,” Mangano said.

Mangano also said his administration had outperformed Suozzi’s, and that NIFA’s increased scrutiny since he took office was due to a change in the authority’s accounting standards.

“They’re a critical body,” Mangano said. “They were just as harsh [on Suozzi] if not harsher. He had the opportunity of all of that extra revenue and he squandered it.”

Though Mangano was in light spirits for the day’s campaigning, the stakes of the Nov. 5 election are high for the county. 

Republicans currently hold a one-vote edge in the county Legislature, and this year passed a redistricting plan that liberal critics alleged could shift enough seats to give the GOP the supermajority needed to borrow money without bipartisan support.

And should Mangano win re-election, he will enter his second term facing several legal challenges that could see very different outcomes under a Suozzi administration.

Parts of Mangano’s financial recovery plan is currently floating in legal limbo – a NIFA wage freeze is facing a court challenge from unions, and Mangano’s proposal to end the county’s responsibility for paying out school and special district tax refunds is also tied up in litigation.

“If you’re going to change the culture of institutional special interests, you’re going to have this litigation from time to time,” Mangano said.

Mangano also dismissed a pending investigation from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman into county contracts handed out after Hurricane Sandy and the political fundraising activities of Deputy County Executive Rob Walker, calling allegations of misconduct “nonsense.”

Schneiderman issued subpoenas this summer to the Nassau County Republican Party and Mangano’s re-election campaign over contributions from Looks Great Services, a contractor that won almost $70 million in storm recovery business from the county in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Schneiderman’s office is also looking into the activities of the Hicksville Republican Club, run by Walker, which purchased a MetLife Stadium skybox that Democrats allege was then used to fundraise for Mangano’s campaign.

But for Mangano, the campaign – and his political career – have always been about Nassau County’s economy. 

In an interview at Eisenhower Park, standing beside the bandstand as thousands of his constituents took in the strains of a Frankie Valli tribute band, Mangano said his political career was sparked by the collapse of the defense industry in his hometown of Bethpage.

“Overnight we lost 20,000 jobs,” Mangano said. “I worked very hard on that for years.”

As county executive, Mangano said, he has brought jobs back through a series of partnerships with private businesses, including the county’s recent deal with Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner to revamp the Nassau County Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“We lead the nation in public-private partnerships,” Mangano said. “The Coliseum, the bus company, the jail, the twin ice skating rinks, the [New York] Cosmos practice field.”

And in Farmingdale on Saturday, the crowd seemed largely receptive to Mangano’s message, with the candidate exchanging a series of handshakes and conversations with supporters.

Alice Stein, a Levittown resident who said she supported Suozzi during his first run for office in 2002 but is now a registered Republican, said she supports Mangano, and felt Suozzi had abandoned Long Island during his mid-term run for governor in 2006.

“I like Mr. Mangano. I think he’s working really hard. He’s fighting an uphill battle – I think he inherited more garbage than he deserved, and he’s doing the best with what he got,” Stein said. “[Suozzi] had his eyes on Albany and he just walked away from us.”

That’s a message Mangano hopes will stick, as he seeks another four years in his Mineola office.

Reach reporter Dan Glaun by e-mail at dglaun@archive.theisland360.com, by phone at 516.307.1045 x203 or on Twitter @dglaun. Also follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/theislandnow.