Welcome to Wonky Wednesday. Each week I dive into the registration and election data that makes up the electoral landscape of Onondaga County. Today I take a look at the Town of Elbridge. This is the first small rural town I have looked in this series. It sits in the west portion of Onondaga County. Despite being a mostly urban town, it contains two villages, Jordan and Elbridge. It should be noted that the village of Elbridge just moved their elections to the fall November calendar. Both villages elect their candidates traditionally without party activity.
Elbridge has seen a decent jump in voter registration for the Presidential year. Unlike other towns this was not a result of a four year build since 2016 but a one year jump. While we will have to wait for census data to be sure, this is most likely a jump in presidential voters rather then a significant population shift.
The Town of Elbridge is a reliably Republican town. In fact the Democratic party didn’t even have committee members until recently. While there have been Democrats on the party line in the past, it was mostly a result of disaffected Republicans using the Democrat line. Elbridge is not split by legislative districts, it wholly resides in OCL 13. Further their town elects all candidates town wide. However it does have 5 nearly equal in size (in terms of registered voters) election districts we can look at.
Elbridge is one of the few towns in Onondaga County that the GOP is holding steady in. Since 2009 the GOP advantage has stayed strong in this town. Though the Democrats did see some gains since 2016, the GOP has matched or exceeded them. The Non-enrolled voter has actually at times surpassed the Democratic enrollment numbers. This happened again in 2020 which seems to point to the new registrations being more of a mix of GOP presidential only voters as well as non-enrolled swing voters.
None of the election districts in Elbridge have a more Democratic bend then the others. Even the villages of Jordan (ED 2) and Elbridge (ED 5) are solidly GOP districts though Democrats do outnumber Non-enrolled in those more urban settings. EDs 1, 3, and 5 are the more rural portions of the town and are also in more GOP control with non-enrolled voters eclipsing GOP.
With the solid GOP enrollment numbers it is not surprising that the “significant six” races we are looking at all are overwhelming Republican results. It is one of only 5 towns that Biden lost in Onondaga County, as well as every other race. There is a weird anomaly in this town, its one of the only ones where County Executive Ryan McMahon performed worse then Lisa Dell and Matt Beadnell in 2019. It could be an anomaly but it could also indicate a more hardcore Trump vote here that rejects more mainline GOP candidates.
The key to any success Democrats may have in Elbridge will be to forge political alliances with more conservative non-enrolled members and rally around local governance issues. In 2021 the Supervisor, Clerk, Highway Superintendent, and 2 Town Councilors are up for election. A new Elbridge Democratic Committee is being formed but it is in its infancy. Anyone wanting to get involved should contact OCDC Town Chair Denise Baker at deenisebaker@aol.com.
Dustin M. Czarny 