Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday. This is my weekly deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of Onondaga County. Today I dive into the Town of Geddes. One of the more dense suburban towns in Onondaga County. Dominated by the largest village in Onondaga County, the wild village of Solvay (more on that later this summer) and the NYS Fairgrounds. This town is undergoing so dramatic recent change in the wake of the 2020 election..
Geddes experiences a mini surge of registered voters in the 2020 election. Unlike other suburban towns that saw steadier increases over the last few years, Geddes saw a jump of over 500 voters or a increase of over 4.3% in just one year. This is more like what we normally see during a presidential year. A big one time jump followed by a slow decline. The jump happened and we will have to see if the decline does as well.
The Town of Geddes flipped to be a plurality Democratic town in 2016. Democrats currently have a decent 3% lead on GOP enrollment. However there is an outsized conservative party enrollment which almost closes the gap. Geddes, like most of the suburban Democratic towns, are split into multiple election districts. OCL 8 (Chris Ryan) and OCL 15 (Bill Kinne) are represented by Democrats and have substantial city portions of their districts. OCL 4 wraps around Onondaga lake and into Salina and is the more GOP portion of the town. This seat though is open this year as long time County Legislator Tassone is retiring.
The story of the town enrollment in Geddes follows the story of suburbs all across Onondaga County and really the nation. THE GOP enrollment has stagnated over the last 6 years while Democrats were on a slow rise which exploded over the last two years. Also growing in that time period is the non-enrolled population. IT seems new enrollments in this town are overwhelming Democrat and non-enrolled as the GOP struggles to tread water.
The three County Legislative districts in Geddes are pretty unique. OCL 4 is the Northern Lakeland portion of the Town. This tends to be more suburban and upper-class area that has a definitive GOP lean. OCL 8 is more even with a slight Democratic lean combining the southern portion of Geddes. When paired with the city portion of the district is seen as a safe Democratic seat. OCL 15 has the Village of Solvay and was once represented by current CE Ryan McMahon however once he left the Democrats were able to easily win this district back with Bill Kinne and it is seen as a safer Democratic seat.
The Town of Geddes performs like the typical swing town in our significant six races. In 2019 CE McMahon was able to easily win the Town but Marty Masterpole was able to also win a majority here. Perhaps most telling is how close the county clerk race was with little money spent this was a surprisingly close race in this town. IN 2020 Democrats did much better with significant wins by Biden and John Mannion. Geddes is the hometown for Mannion (not Camillus as I previously reported) so that helped swing results his way. Like most towns Balter did not far well against Katko here.
Democrats must capitalize on the recent Democratic surge in this town to take be successful. This means increasing turnout and winning over the ever increasing non-enrolled voter. In 2021 the supervisor, two town justices, and three town councilors are up for election. The Democrats elect candidates by Caucus in this town. If you are interested in running contact Geddes Town Democrat chair John Ferguson at jferg393@gmail.com and the Solvay Geddes Committee can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/geddesdems
Dustin M. Czarny 