#wonkywednesday

How cute is Vinnie’s wonky little loaf leg?

Welcome back to #wonkywednesday. Every week I take a write a column dedicated to election and registration data in Onondaga County and New York State. Absentee and mail in balloting has become needlessly controversial over the last two elections due to the rhetoric of the former President and his supporters. Furthermore in New York our arcane rules have put an unusual spotlight on mail in ballots as they were sequestered and not counted until 2 weeks after Election Day. Those rules will change for 2022. In a blow to mail-in ballot supporters the proposition for no-excuse balloting failed at the 2021 general election. Whether this dampers the growth we have seen in mail-in balloting in the future of New York will be interesting to watch in 2022 and beyond. This week I investigate the absentee, affidavit, and court order ballot data from the 2021 general election.

Democrats continue to dominate Absentee voting in 2021 as they did in 2020. The 2946 ballots cast by Democrats accounted for nearly 49% of all ballots while the GOP (1843) accounted for 30.6%. Like with Early Voting Democrats outpaced their enrollment in Onondaga (38.4%) as did the GOP (27.3%). The story of the 2021 election continues to be non-enrolled voters participating at lower rates. Their 895 ballots were just 14.9% of the absentee ballot total despite being 27.3% of the overall electorate. There were 9438 absentee ballots requested overall with 3423 (36.29%) not returning their ballot. Another 225 the ballots were returned as undeliverable (2.4%) most likely permanent absentees who moved since last election.

Another 185 were returned but ruled invalid. Of the invalids 56 (30.3%) were ruled that way because they did not properly fill out the ballot envelope and did not return the cure affidavit sent by the BOE in time. Another 42 (22.7%) returned their absentees postmarked after Election Day. 30 (16.2%) voted in person during Early Voting or Election Day while another thirty were ruled invalid during the absentee opening after inspecting the ballots inside. Finally, 15 (8.1%) ballots were pulled as they were issued to Election Inspectors who then decided not to work on Election Day, rendering their excuse invalid.

Like Early voting, absentee ballots rise and fall in ratio to overall turnout. They also seem to correlate to federal versus local election years with voters not only increasing in numbers requested but return rate in federal years. In 2021 more voters requested and returned absentee ballots than all but a few years since 2009. 2012, 2016, and 2020 were presidential years and accounted for the high requests, 2018 a mid term year that came closer to presidential turnout than others. In 2010 there were less requests but slightly more returned ballots. Despite a low turnout for 2021, a higher number of voters are turning toward alternative voting methods from Election Day. The downside for absentees is that despite the high number of requests there was a high number of ballots unreturned as compared to previous years. The 63.7% return rate was the lowest return rate since 2009 (61.2%).

Ever since the reforms initiated in 2019 that brought about Early Voting the electorate has been adapting to the new options for voting. As we can see in 2019 the call for absentee ballots was low with just 3788 voters choosing this method or just 3.52% of the overall vote. Voters were turning to Early Voting for their alternative method. As COVID 19 raised its head in 2020 voters sought to stay at home and vote in record numbers with 57203 voters and a daunting 24.08% of the overall vote. In 2021 with COVID still lingering and voters used to alternative methods we did see a marked increase in ballots returned of 6015 and overall electorate percentage of 6.38%

Two other alternative forms of voting remain to be examined, affidavit and court orders. In 2019 a little-known reform has made affidavit voting a more potent method of voting, the universal transfer of registration. This allows more affidavits to be counted than before since it expanded the acceptable eligibility of registered voters from the county where the vote was cast to all of New York State. This eliminated one of the more common reasons a voter affidavit was reject. In 2021 547 voters cast ballots as affidavits. Only forty-four were ruled invalid. This along with the use of electronic poll books to re route voters to the right polling place has resulted in a 92% acceptance rate, the highest since 2009 and maybe ever. Most of the remaining rejected affidavits are those who refuse to show up at the right polling place or were not registered to vote in the first place.

Court orders are the last alternative voting method, but it is the least used of all. Court orders now are only used by those moving from out of state after the voter registration deadline or those who have failed to register for one reason or another. In 2021 we saw only three court orders throughout the entire Early and Election Day voting period. This is the lowest court order request on record since 2009.

Welcome back to #wonkywednesday. Each week I take a deep dive into the election and registration data around Onondaga County to give a better sense of our diverse home. This week I continue to look back at the 2021 General Election. Today I focus on Early Voting and how Onondaga County voters used this reform.

Democrats continue to use the Early Voting reform more than any other party. Democrats make up just over 38.4% of the overall electorate of Onondaga County. In 2021 Democrats made up 39.5% of the turnout for the General Election. Therefore, it is significant that Democrats make up just under 52% of the Early Vote. This disparity can be directly traced back to both the rhetoric against Early Voting by the GOP and investment in Early Voting GOTV by the Democratic party. Of the 6 Early Voting sites Dewitt Town Hall dominated the Early Voting Turnout with 2728 voters voting there. Camillus Town Hall (2133) and Clay Town Hall (1918) followed at 2 & 3. Armond Magnarelli (1274) was fourth, Lafayette Fire Station (860) was fifth, and Syracuse Community Connections (764) was sixth.

2021 was an abnormally low turnout year. It was the lowest turnout in the General Election since 2015. Early Voting turnout was certainly lower than the tremendous turnout in 2020. In 2020 record turnout was reflected in overall raw Early Votes (59,284) and percentage of overall vote (24.96%). Though 2021 paled in comparison to 2020, it increased numbers and percentages from the last local year, 2019, despite lower turnout. 2021 Early Vote of 9727 was a 15% increase from 2019. The overall percentage of the electorate increased from 7.86% in 2019 to 10.31% in 2021 as well.

Local years have shown to have dramatically different turnouts to federal years in certain communities. The City of Syracuse had particularly low turnout in 2021 however Armond Magnarelli and Syracuse Community Connections saw higher voter totals (1274 & 768) in raw numbers than 2019 (938 & 727), however Syracuse Community Connections was a lower vote share (7.85%) than 2019 (8.59%) and Armond increased its vote share (13.10%) from 2019 (11.08%). Lafayette Fire Station & Camillus Fire Station saw an increase in their raw vote totals (890 & 2,133) from 2019 (665 & 1,130) and their share of the Early Vote (8.84% & 21.93%) from 2019 (7.86% & 13.35%). The big jump in Camillus may be attributed to the change of location as the western site was in Van Buren Town Hall in 2019. Dewitt Town Hall saw an increase in the raw vote totals (2,778) from 2019 (2,743). However, their overall voter share. .56%) dropped from 2019 (32.42%).  Finally, Clay Town Hall dropped in both raw numbers (1918) from 2019 (2,257) as wall as vote share (19.72%) from 2019 (26.67%). What we are seeing is more spread-out usage of the three main suburban sites from 2019 while the city sites and rural sites still lag in participation.

The location of Early Voting sites drives the participation from individual Towns and the City of Syracuse. In the above chart the green bars represent the five towns where Early Voting sites reside in:  Syracuse, Camillus, Clay, Dewitt & Lafayette. In terms raw turnout numbers, the City of Syracuse dominates the participation (2332) but also has two sites and more population than any individual town. Camillus (993) Clay (1263) and Dewitt (924) are also large participants as they are high population towns. In terms of percentage of the electorate Lafayette leads in overall percentages (9.76%) despite a low actual number (360). On the converse Syracuse overall percentage of usage (3.31%) is exceptionally low as is Clay (3.04%). Camillus (5.28%) and Dewitt (5.22%) remain high on percentage

As we look toward Early Voting Expansion in 2022 as we will have to look at the towns who do not participate as much, The Town of Manlius is one of the standouts for towns without an Early Voting site in It Though it must be noted the Dewitt Town Hall is on the border, still Manlius is second in over vote total (1400) and percentage (5.59%) despite not having an EV center in it.  Conversely the towns of Lysander (1.68%), Cicero (1.68%), Onondaga (2.23%) and Salina (1.78%) are particularly large towns that do not participate as well as Camillus, Clay, and Dewitt in Early Voting. Finally, the drop off in the City of Syracuse could be addressed with Early Voting sites inside them.

Welcome back to #wonkywednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I am taking a bit of a diversion this week to delve into the topic dominating our political discussion here, redistricting of the County Legislative districts.  Over the last two months there has been a wild and rushed process where the GOP legislators and County Executive have rushed through a process that resulted in the County Executive vetoing their own maps.  This has put the county in a bit of chaos as the County Charter has no prescribed way forward.  The County GOP legislators now have started another process to decide these maps by December 21, 2021 with legislators drawing their own maps.  The Democratic caucus has put forward a plan to take longer and sending the maps back to the reapportionment commission.  

The County GOP though seems determined to have a vote on December 21, 2021 and the Democrats and GOP have put forward new maps.  To make things more complicated the GOP has submitted two different maps (2.5 &4.0) while the Democratic legislators have submitted their maps (3.0).  The GOP maps only differ in how they divide the City of Syracuse and their suburban divisions are the same.  You can view the maps here at the Reapportion Commission website:  http://www.ongov.net/legislature/ReapportionmentCommission.html.

For today’s #Wonkywednesday I will dive into the differences between the GOP and Democratic maps both visually and with some statistics as well.  While at first blush the maps completely different, their differences boil down to 4 main areas of the County.  I will look at first how the divide up the City of Syracuse, the Northern Suburbs, Eastern Suburbs, and Western Suburbs, where the differences are most stark.  The choices in these four areas of the county show the different philosophies in redistricting for the GOP and Democratic lawmakers.

The choices inside the City of Syracuse are where all the differences start.  Choices made here have ripple effects throughout the county as a whole.  It is also the place where the most improvement could come from the disastrous 2011 map which divided the City of Syracuse into 9 different legislative districts with only 2 totally inside the City and 7 stretching city portions out into the county.  This idea of “metro-government” was a novel concept proposed by Onondaga County Reapportionment Committee member Ryan McMahon, now the County Executive. Critics have claimed, including me, this was just another term for Gerrymandering and divided the City needlessly. With a population of over 148k the City of Syracuse could have 5 whole districts inside of it and sixth district would be needed to take some excess population.  Both the GOP plan and the Democratic plan try to fix this by having just 6 districts in the city, but that is where the similarities end.

The Democratic plan divides the city into 5 wholly contained districts representing neighborhoods in the East, Northwest, North East, center city and valley portions of the City.  A small portion of the west side is paired with Geddes and a small portion of Camillus to create another district.  The two GOP have 6 districts but 3 of them span out into neighboring towns leaving only 3 districts inside the City proper. The 6 districts do not really fall into known neighborhoods chewing up traditional neighborhoods like Eastwood, Lincoln hill, university, and the south side into different districts. There are also stark differences in minority representation which I will dive into in the metrics portion of this column.

The Eastern suburbs are most affected by the desire to split the city into districts and pair them with more white areas of the county.  The Town of Dewitt in particular is drawn and quartered in the GOP plan.  Despite having a population of just 26k and could easily fit inside one legislative district, as we see in the Democratic plan, but they needlessly divide it into 4 different districts.  In fact the Dewitt portions are either in the minority or near the minority in all four districts making it likely a Dewitt resident may not be represented in the legislature under the GOP plan.  With Dewitt being a heavy Democratic town this move is suspect, especially when in the GOP plan the town of Lysander is kept whole, a similarly populated town with high growth rate but just happens to be Republican.  They also move the traditional Town of Manlius district north and take the village of Manlius out of this district.  The Village of Manlius happens to be Democratic and the newly elected GOP legislator Gregg Olson barely won his election in an ever blue town of Manlius. This could be why they are trying to make OCL 10 more conservative.

The Western suburbs are similarly affected by the City of Syracuse choices.  In the Democratic plan the town of Geddes is kept whole inside one inside one legislative district that adds population from fast growing Camillus and the West side of Syracuse.  The GOP plan splits the town into 3 different districts, despite it having only 17K citizens and actually having a negative growth rate over the last ten years.  A similar town in Onondaga with 22k which lost population was kept whole in the GOP plan.  The Democrats do divide Camillus into three districts where the GOP divides it into two, however the choices within are still suspect.  Eastern Camillus is paired with Elbridge the western most towns in the GOP plan through a portion of Van Buren creating a long winding district.  The Democrat plan divides eastern Camillus into two different districts pairing with neighboring towns while keeping the western portion of Camillus with Elbridge.

Finally the Northern Suburbs, particularly the Town of Salina is an interesting snapshot of how even when the Democratic and GOP maps agree on number of districts in a Town, their differences show the different choices they make.  In the Democratic map the Town of Salina has three different districts, however 28k residents of the town of 33k is in one district, a small Election District bordering Dewitt is put into that district and a small portion of Salina is paired with the new district 5 that takes excess population from Cicero, Salina and Clay as they all require more than one district.  In the GOP map a random Ed is paired with a Clay district, half the town is paired with the district 5, and the other half is paired with a winding district that snakes around Onondaga Lake into Geddes putting the residents of Solvay and Liverpool together.  

Looking at the 3 new maps and comparing with the old maps all of them do a better job of trying to keep towns from being divided unnecessarily, but again the Democratic plan is best.  Each legislative district must be approximately 28k residents.  So any town with less than 28k residents the goal should be to put it wholly into legislative district.  Manlius, Salina, & Cicero have more than28k residents so they would ideally have two legislative districts inside of them. Clay has 60k residents so it should have 3 districts, and as we discussed Syracuse with 148k residents would have 6.  In the GOP map the Towns of Dewitt(4:1), Salina(3:2), Camillus(2:1), Geddes(3:1), Van Buren (2:1) & Onondaga (2:1) have more than the required legislative districts in them.  In the Democratic Maps Camillus (3:1), Onondaga (2:1), Lysander (2:1), Van Buren (2:1) & Salina (3:1) have more than required.  Van Buren in both maps is divided mainly to keep the village of Baldwinsville whole, which is required by the new state law.  In Onondaga in both maps the Onondaga Indian nation is divided and put in the southern district where the Democratic map added in the Nedrow community as a whole.  Lysander and Camillus have seen higher than average growth in population along with Clay and Manlius so if that pattern holds having division in those towns are justified.  The towns of Geddes and Dewitt have been population neutral over the last ten years if not deficit and dividing them in the way the GOP has done is arbitrary and needless.

Similarly having a representative cover more than one Town or city should be avoided ideally to allow them to focus on that areas needs and advocate for those citizens.  The Democrats by keeping neighborhoods together have done that with only 9 districts spanning Town/City lines while keeping 5 districts wholly inside the City of Syracuse, 2 inside the Town of Clay, and 1 inside the Town of Manlius and Salina.  The GOP in their theory of Metro Government has 11 seats spanning lines while keeping 3 districts wholly inside the City of Syracuse, 1 district wholly inside the Towns of Clay, Cicero, and Manlius.

It is hard to determine partisan leans in these districts as turnout in odd year elections ends up playing more of a factor than actual registration.  For instance Democrats have had strong partisan leans in 10 districts for the last several cycles yet only consistently win in 6 seats.  This is in part due to lower Democratic turnout in odd years as we saw in last week’s #wonkywednesday as well as large swaths of non-affiliated voters who vote differently in local elections than they do in federal elections.  Incumbency is also a factor as well.  For purposes of illustration though I have ranked the districts in terms of strong and lean rankings for partisan purposes where if a party had more than a 5% enrollment advantage it would have a strong ranking, less than 5% but more than 3% it would have a lean ranking, and lower than 3% it would be a tossup.  It’s clear in these rankings that both GOP maps create more leaning GOP districts than the current maps and less tossups.  The Dem map creates more tossups, lessens the advantage in one Democratic district and has one less GOP leaning district.

I thought it would be helpful to get a neutral unbiased look at these various proposals.  A third party has uploaded the 3 new map proposals as well as the old proposal to the Dave Wasserman Redistricting app.  This neutral app compares legislative district lines to the census numbers and past performance.  This is a great way to compare the 4 maps in a quantitative way and cut through some of rhetoric being lauded from all sides.  The four main areas of comparison are Proportionality, Competitiveness, Minority Representation, and Compactness.  With all 4 statistical categories the higher you rank the better and the scores are ranked 1-100.

You can see all four maps on the App at the following links:

2011 Redistricting map: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::eab89c8a-5408-4609-9ef6-dc198eac7530

GOP Map 2.5: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::7d3ccc35-6aa7-4fe9-8af8-63a30071f5af

DEM Map 3.0: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::2db8abb4-66de-47ce-9caa-5fa4553a1a22

GOP Map 4.0: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::5362d5f1-5baf-470f-ab74-51e7ebe1aad7

The first ranking of proportionality tries to measure the size of the districts in terms of land mass and how equal they are.  This is hard to do on a county-wide level with a dense urban core and sparsely populated rural regions.  It is notable though that in this statistic the Democratic map improves on the old district map whereas both GOP maps are rated worse than the oft criticized 2011 maps. Advantage Democrat 3.0.

Competitiveness analyzes past performances of the districts in various elections as well as voter registration data to try and determine the likelihood of competitive districts. Once again the newly submitted GOP maps do not improve on the 2011 maps ranking as a tie.  As expected from the partisan data I shared earlier the Democrat 2.0 map is rated as more competitive.  Advantage Democrat 3.0.

A great deal of the discussion around the vetoed maps is around minority representation.  The GOP maps cracks the only Black majority district and splits them into white plurality districts.  They’re claim this is to prevent future lawsuits is baseless and flies in the face of redistricting practices in the last few cycles as well as the Voting Rights Act and newly signed State Redistricting guidelines.  While their map 2.5 shows a slight improvement on minority representation from the old map, their map 4.0) is actually rated as a step worse.  The Democratic map 3.0 ranks higher on this metric as it keeps the majority black district and refrains from unnecessarily pairing city neighborhoods with suburban neighborhoods.  Advantage Democrat 3.0.

The final metric may be the most notable, compactness.  These metric studies how compact the individual districts are and whether they needlessly have longer obtuse shapes.  This is one of the more important attributes to the new state law and could be the crux of legal arguments along with minority representation. It also happens to be the starkest difference between the maps.  The 2011 maps were criticized for their obtuse meandering shapes and it is again notable that both submissions of the GOP map were rated worse than the 2011 maps. The Democratic 3.0 map rates much higher on compactness making it more likely to keep communities together and have recognizable representation.  Advantage Democrat 3.0.

It becomes clear looking at the objective statistics as well as the maps themselves that the GOP maps submitted will continue to divide Onondaga County and create needless partisan division.  At the very least the Onondaga County Legislature should reject the maps, send them back to the Reapportionment commission and demand consensus maps that bridge these divides.  Failing in that it is clear the Democratic maps are the better choice according to all metrics and shows a legally sound path for Onondaga County.  A public hearing is scheduled to start at 11:30am on December 21, 2021 with votes immediately after.  If you care about this issue you should attend and have your voice heard.

Welcome back to #WonkyWednesday. Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County. I have been on a two-month hiatus as the November general election required my undivided attention. However, I will be starting this series anew and the next few weeks we will look at the 2021 General Election and a facet of data so we can understand how Onondaga County voted this last year. The first data set we will look at is the most determinative factor of any election, turnout.

As we can see from the data, turnout was abysmal in Onondaga County in 2021. Just 94,306 voters turned out to vote in the General Election and a remarkable 209,078 voters stayed home. That is just 31.08% turnout and the lowest turnout in Onondaga County since 2015. Voters in Onondaga County continued to diversify the way they vote as well. While the overwhelming majority, 78,014, voted on Election Day, 9,727 voted Early and 6,015 voted by absentee, 547 voted by Affidavit, and 3 voted by court order. These are increases since the last local election in 2019 and in the coming weeks I will dive more into the alternate voting methods. Not surprisingly more Democrats, (37,278), voted in 2021 than GOP, (33,048), Blank/Non-enrolled (18,358), and 3rd Party voters (5,622). This order follows the enrollment order in Onondaga County, but the rates are much different.

Republicans continue to turnout in higher percentage rates than all other parties in every election on record since 2009 (this is the date I have readily available data on record at the Onondaga County Board of Elections). In 2021 no part had stellar turnout percentages. The GOP did lead in voter turnout at 40%. Democrats, though outnumbering GOP enrollment and raw turnout, were only able to turnout 32% of its enrollment. This 8-point deficit from the GOP mimicked the same deficit we saw in the last local election, 2019. While Blank voters always trail the two major parties, the 10-point deficit from Democrats and 18-point deficit from the GOP is again basically the same as in 2019 though at lower rates. The lack of participation percentages by Democrats and Non enrolled in local elections is one of the reasons we see a blue county like Onondaga struggle to elect Democrats outside the City of Syracuse on a consistent basis.

After a 4-year trend of rising turnout in comparative elections, culminating with the highest turnout in percentage and raw vote totals in Onondaga County history in 2020, turnout cratered overall in 2021. The County posted its lowest turnout rate since 2015, and the lowest turnout rate in a mayoral cycle since 2013. This is notable since the mayoral election was unchallenged in 2013 with Stephanie Miner running unopposed. In 2021 the City of Syracuse turnout rate of 28.62% lagging behind the Towns at 31.83%. In 2017 and 2009 with competitive mayoral races the city equaled the turnout rate of the County and surrounding towns. In 2013 without a mayoral race, it trailed towns by just over 3%. Despite a three-way race for mayor in 2021 the city turnout more reflected the 2013 race trailing again by 3%. This certainly accounts for some of the lack of turnout however the Towns still had a pathetic turnout rate as well, again their lowest on record since 2015.

The City of Syracuse gets a lot of media focus, specially during mayoral years. It is important to remember though that the city is only a little over 31.1% of the population of Onondaga County, and just 23.2% of the voter enrollment of Onondaga County. The lower enrollment rate along with historically lower voter turnout usually means an exceedingly small percentage of the actual cast votes. In 2021 that was on display with just 20,174 of the voters coming from the City of Syracuse representing only 21.4% of the votes cast.

Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week start my #Fliptheleg series looking at each of the 17 Onondaga County Legislative races.  Today I look at Onondaga County Legislative seat #14 the eastern part of the Town of Clay.

At the time of redistricting Casey Jordan (R) was the legislator representing this portion of Onondaga County.  The GOP majority on the redistricting commission saw this as a safe GOP seat and did not alter it, avoiding the weird shapes other districts fell victim to.  However, they did have to add a few voters to it since the legislature was reduced from 19 to 17 members, however not as much as other districts as Clay was one of the fastest growing Towns in Onondaga County.  They added a few districts in southern Central Clay and called it a day relying on the power of incumbency to keep the district.

What was once thought a safe GOP district has changed dramatically.  Democrats now have a small plurality in the district having 33% of the vote.  The GOP is now 2nd with 31% of the voting population.  The non-enrolled population is gaining on both parties with 29% of the population.  This is one of just 3 districts that are wholly contained in a town, so we must look to other ways to get some insights.  Fortunately, half of the village of North Syracuse is in OCL 14.  That makes up about 16% of the voting population so we do get a decent look at some differences inside the district.

Democrats have overtaken this once solid red district.  Since redistricting Democrats have gained 795 voters. The GOP has gained voters as well, but at a lesser rat, just 358 voters.  The Non-enrolled is the big gainer here with 1061 voters.  As the population in this district grows the makeup seems to change.  While the GOP is holding ground there does seem to be the familiar suburban shift, we saw in reaction to the Trump election in 2016.  Newer voters and transplants tend to favor Democrats while many GOP are shedding their party label because of the national politics.  

The North Syracuse portion of the district is where the Demographic changes are most prevalent.  The small plurality for Democrats in the district comes from this portion.  Democrats have a sizeable plurality of the North Syracuse village portion in OCL 14. Non-enrolled outnumber the GOP here. The remaining portion of the district is a statistical tie with the GOP outnumbering the Democrats by less than 40 registrants. If a Democrat could run even in the rest of the district, they could flip it with the registration advantage in N. Syracuse.

In 2011 and 2013 the Democrats were not organized in Clay and did not run a candidate against Casey Jordan.  In 2015 before the Trump shift political newcomer Kevin Tees lost to Casey Jordan by a little over 800 votes.  However, in the next election another political newcomer Stephanie Heath (D) ran a much closer race losing by just 327 votes.  In fact, Heath won more votes on the Democratic line than Jordan did on the GOP line, but Jordan was reelected on the strength of the conservative and independence party vote.  In what should be seen as a lost opportunity, in 2019 the Democrats failed to capitalize on this momentum by not fielding a candidate allowing Jordan to run unopposed. This does not mean Jordan was popular. In fact facing growing public outcry over the White Pines development and a strong Democratic challenger this year, Jordan decided not to run when a convenient county job opened up for him.  This allowed the GOP to appoint and run the son of a tax collector in Clay for the job.

The comparative races show a district that is becoming more competitive as the Registration patterns start to shift.  Without Democrats running competitive local races in 2019 the GOP candidates in the comparative districts did dominate the county wide races here.  McMahon won by 18 points, Dell by 17, and Beadnell by 12.  However, 2020 does show a different look at the district.  Katko did perform well for congress winning the district by 16 points, however John Mannion came within 1.5 points of winning the district and Joe Biden won the district by almost 6 points.  With a nearly full slate of candidate in Clay this year running as a team we will see if increased activity can make the district perform more like a presidential year than a local one.

Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week start my #Fliptheleg series looking at each of the 17 Onondaga County Legislative races.  Today I look at Onondaga County Legislative seat #13 which covers the western portion of Onondaga County including Van Buren, Elbridge, and the western part of Camillus.

At the time of redistricting Robert Warner (R) was the legislator representing this portion of Onondaga County.  The GOP majority on the redistricting commission barely altered the district only adding a bit more of conservative parts of Camillus.  It was a safe GOP district for years and remained so, avoiding the weird shapes other districts fell victim to.  The safe GOP nature of the seat though has led to several GOP primaries for the seat.  This unlikely activity is only made possible because the Democrats rarely run candidates here and a slight civil war between the more moderate part of the GOP and conservative members have broken out.

Though we do see some demographic change in this district. the GOP has a sizeable plurality of the district holding 35% of the voting population.  The Democrats have just 29% of the voting population and non-enrolled make up 28%. This district is spread amongst 3 towns. Van Buren dominates the district representing 46% of the voting population.  The western portion of Camillus has 35% of the population, while the entire town of Elbridge only has 19%.

Democrats are gaining in this district, but like OCL 1 in Lysander they started from a large deficit it will be some time before they can catch up.  The GOP added 457 voters, a rarity in the districts we have looked at.  The Democrats though have gained over double that at 990 voters.  The non-enrolled has seen the biggest growth, adding 1303 voters.  The Democrats are gaining in this district, and we could see some significant gains in the future, but it may be a while before Democrats are competitive enrollment wise in the district.

The three Towns of the district all are conservative as well. Van Buren is the dominant in population but the closes t in partisan differences.  The western portion of Camillus though is the more conservative part of this now blue town.  The GOP still dominate this portion of town.  Elbridge is small in population, but its strong GOP lean really sets the tone in this district pushing it from a lean R to a strong R seat.

In 2011 Derick Shepard (R), ran a primary against sitting legislator Robert Warner (R).  He was supported by Ryan McMahon and the more establishment wing of the party.  He won his party and survived a three race against Warner and Jim Scaramuzzino (D).  This was the last time Democrats put up a candidate in this seat, but there was a little bit of intrigue here.  In 2013 and 2015 Derek Shepard ran unopposed and received conservative backing. However, in 2017 Ken Bush (R)challenged Derek Shepard on the GOP line and won the Conservative endorsement as well. The GOP were desperate to keep the seat in their loyal nominees’ hands and waged an expensive campaign with false claims of fraud to keep Bush off the ballot.  The court case was thrown out on appeal and Bush won the GOP primary.  Bush then ran unopposed in 2019.

The comparative races show a district that is as conservative as one would expect, but some signs of hope as well.  In 2019 we saw strong showings for McMahon for county executive and Lisa Dell for County Clerk.  Even Matt Beadnell who lost his comptroller race polled in double digits here. In 2020 congress showed a big loss for Dana Balter as expected.  However, John Mannion performed in single digits in the district.  Joe Biden lost this district by less than 2 points. This means in certain races the non-0enrolled are aligning with the Democrats and creating a formidable block.

Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week start my #Fliptheleg series looking at each of the 17 Onondaga County Legislative races.  Today I look at Onondaga County Legislative seat #12 which covers the southeast portion of Onondaga County including Tully, Pompey, Fabius, Lafayette, the lower portion of Dewitt and a tiny portion of Manlius and the City of Syracuse.

At the time of redistricting Robert DeMore (R) was the legislator representing this portion of Onondaga County.  He decided not to run for re-election, this along with the reduction of two seats gave the GOP majority on the redistricting commission opportunities to reshape some districts to stack and crack Democratic areas of the County.  Though this district avoided the weird shapes other districts fell victim to it was altered in significant ways.  The Onondaga portion of the district was removed to shore up OCL 11 and since the district had a strong GOP lean, they put a sizeable portion of Dewitt and the South Campus portion of the City of Syracuse into the district.  This diluted those Democratic areas pairing it with rural GOP dominated portions of the county.

The district is not as blood red as it once was.  The GOP only has a small plurality of the district holding 34% of the voting population.  The Democrats have closed the gap and have 32% of the voting population and non-enrolled make up 27%.  This district is spread amongst 7 towns making it one of the most diverse districts in the county.   The largest portion of the district population resides in Pompey with 28% and Dewitt portion making the second largest portion at 26%.  Lafayette has 19%, Tully 11%, Fabius 7%. And the tiny portions of Manlius 5% and Syracuse 4%.  

The adding of Democratic areas to the district has resulted in a district that has changed dramatically.  The GOP has held steady only losing 274 voters.  The Democrats have gained 1265 voters in the district.  The non-enrolled has gained significantly as well with 820 voters.  This shows that as populations grow once rural and suburban areas are becoming either Democratic or non-enrolled and the GOP has a shrinking plurality.  Newer voters are either enrolling in the Democratic party or not enrolled at all and the older GOP population is shrinking through attrition.

This district really is a story of two halves.  The northern more Democratic part of the district dominated by the annexed portion of DeWitt and the small portions of Syracuse and Manlius represent the Democratic part of the district.  The GOP part of the district is dominated by Pompey and Lafayette with Fabius and Tully as well.  However if we look under the hood we see the GOP towns of Pompey & Tully have had increases in their Democratic population cutting into the blood red portion of the district.

In 2011 Dave Knapp (R), the supervisor of Lafayette was selected to fill the open seat in the newly formed District 12.   Philip Benedict (D) ran a campaign against him, but it was not well funded, and Knapp won easily by 1490 votes.  The Democrats then did not run anyone against Knapp for the next three elections.  In the meantime, he rose to majority leader and then Chairman of the legislature when Ryan McMahon became county executive.    Jennifer Blusk (D) ran a vigorous race in 2019 focused solely on redistricting but still lost by 1298 votes.

The comparative races show a district that is much more moderate than it would at first look.  While McMahon won for County Executive in by a little over 10 points this was about ton average as his win countywide, but far under other suburban districts.  Dell won by 10 points for County Clerk and Beadnell 4 points for County Comptroller, again underperforming their wins in other parts of the county.  In 2020 Balter only lost this district by 9 points with 4 on the WFP line.  This district shares NYS Senate districts but the Democrats of May & Mannion ran even in this district.  Joe Biden won this district by 12 points.