For first time in recent memory, Republicans find themselves trailing Democrats upstate in voter registration numbers
Democrats gain first-ever enrollment edge upstate
Published: March 17, 2009, 12:30 am
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Afew indisputable facts about New York: it snows in Buffalo; the Hudson flows south; the Big Apple is Democratic to the core; and upstate remains forever Republican.
Now that last one turns from fact to myth.
For the first time in anybody’s memory, the vast territory north of Westchester and Rockland counties tilts Democrat in active voter registration. As Republicans across the country grapple with declining fortunes, even their upstate bastion is morphing into at least a pale shade of blue.
“It’s significant,” said June O’Neill, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party. “The Republicans have either held steady or lost ground while we’ve been creeping up.”
Indeed, last year’s elections, which flipped control of the upstate and suburban- dominated Senate from Republicans to Democrats, underscores the point. Along with the offices of governor, comptroller and attorney general, Democrats now run both houses of the Legislature essentially for the first time since the 1930s. While several county executives and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg— now anindependent— were elected on the GOP line, Democrats claim much of the Empire State’s enrollment.
As a result, such former GOP strongholds as Dutchess, Rensselaer, Onondaga and Niagara counties now report a Democratic registration edge.
“Even in the counties where enrollment does not reflect a Democratic majority, the Democratic performance has been there,” O’Neill added.
Statewide and upstate numbers tell the story. While Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 2.5 million voters across the state today, they trailed by only about 800,000 when Alfonse M. D’Amato won the statewide Senate election in 1980.
Upstate—the area that excludes New York City, plus Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland counties—counted 1,332,306 Republicans and 1,034,963 Democrats in 1980. Today upstate Democrats have vaulted ahead—1,524,697 to 1,492,309.
In Erie County in 1980, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 241,427 to 171,656. Today Democrats hold an edge of 294,051 to 160,051.
In a related development, the number of unaffiliated voters also has grown significantly. While only about 932,000 across the state listed themselves as “blank” in 1980, 2.2 million claim no party today.
“Parties remain the organizing paradigm in the Legislature,” observed Gerald Benjamin, a professor at New Paltz State College and an expert on state politics. “But they have diminished in importance for the electorate. They’re not as intense in their commitments except for special moments [like presidential elections].”
While Democrats have controlled upstate’s big cities for decades—including Buffalo since shortly after World War II— the GOP claimed suburban and rural areas. That meant that the bulk of Republicans in the Assembly and State Senate hailed from places where silos rather than office buildings dominate the skyline.
Robert E. Davis, the former Erie County Republican Party chairman who directed two statewide registration drives for the GOP in recent years, said Democrats have benefited from a “perfect storm.” He cites the national “motor voter” law, signed in 1993, which widely expanded voter registration opportunities. That, he said, favored Democrats, as has a recent pendulum swing toward the Democrats throughout the country.
Combined with what he called the widespread unpopularity of former President George W. Bush and the resulting election of Barack Obama as his successor, Davis said Republicans no longer can take for granted former strongholds like upstate New York.
“The Democrats are just more organized when it comes to voter registration, probably because of all the support from organized labor,” he said. “For the Republicans, either the committeemen and committeewomen do it or it doesn’t get done.”
And following the two drives he led back when George E. Pataki, a Republican, was governor, Davis said he’s seen nothing of the sort since.
“A lot of it is driven by national politics, and the Democratic Party is on top of it right now,” he said. “People are turned off with the Republican Party.”
Benjamin, of New Paltz State, agreed. He said voter registration opportunities presented through motor vehicle registration and other public contacts have opened the process to many people who normally would not consider the political process.
And even if the state’s upstate counties considered themselves Republican for decades, the state’s GOP has always differed from the hard-core conservatism of other parts of the country. When New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey ran against Franklin D. Roosevelt for president in 1944, Benjamin said, he didn’t oppose the New Deal—he just said the GOP could do it better.
“New York has never been a really conservative place, and the Republican Party here did well by running at the center,” Benjamin said. “Now that the parties have sorted out ideologically more than they used to be, New York-type Republicans are not comfortable in the Republican Party, and the voters are saying that.”
On the flip side, many upstate Democrats— especially state legislators—have succeeded over the years with backing from the Conservative Party. It was founded in 1962 to act as a check on the liberal tilt of then-Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller’s GOP.
If current trends continue, Benjamin said, a deeper blue may shade legislative elections, although he agrees Republicans still can snare the occasional gubernatorial or county executive election. But he sees dangers in one-party rule.
“Downstate has come to regard state leadership positions as an entitlement,” Benjamin said. “It’s better to have a two-party system. I just don’t think Massachusetts politics is the kind of politics we want.”
Davis, the former Republican county chairman, said all is not lost. The election of Republicans as county executives—Chris Collins in Erie County, Maggie Brooks in Monroe County and Joanie Mahoney in Onondaga County—shows it can be done —especially in appealing to more conservative “Reagan Democrats.”
“The Republican Party needs to find a message, articulate it and start talking about it,” he said. “It’s all about the message.”
O’Neill, the state Democratic chairwoman, recognizes that Democratic dominance is fraught with danger. The party will face voters again in 2010 with every statewide office—including both U. S. Senate seats— on the ballot. They will be asked to defend potentially unpopular steps to deal with massive deficits.
“It’s a new responsibility, and to whom much is given, much is required,” she acknowledged. “To use the vernacular, you better be careful what you wish for.”
rmccarthy@buffnews.com
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