Kenneth C. Crowe II and Brendan J. Lyons report for the Times Union that Republican candidate Thomas A. Reale dropped out of the Troy mayoral race this week, after a meeting with Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin and the county's operations director Richard Crist, who both reportedly pressured him to give up his campaign. The story says McLaughlin and Crist allegedly threatened Reale's future political aspirations and his employment as a state Senate Republican aide. McLaughlin was a state assemblyperson before resigning weeks after being sanctioned in 2017 for sexually harassing a female legislative aide. Crist has consulted with Republicans for many years, and was placed on unpaid leave from March to August during an FBI probe. Reale declined to comment on the meeting, but his name remains on the Republican and Conservative lines and absentee ballots in the November election. Two Democrats will also be on the ballot: incumbent Patrick Madden and Rodney Wiltshire, who lost a primary to Madden earlier in the year. Republicans are backing him, though Wiltshire previously lost to Madden by 200 votes in the primary, and by 25 votes in 2015. Read more about this story in the Times Union.