Welcome back to #WeeklyWonk. Each weekend I publish an article on a subject relating to elections in Onondaga County and New York State. Often these articles will have detailed stats to consume but sometimes they will be a recap of a prominent issue or on relevant election law. I am turning my eye to the 2023 elections. Today this series turns away from the towns of Onondaga County and to the Onondaga County Legislative districts that have competitive races. This week I present my final political subdivision breakdown as I investigate Onondaga County Legislative district 15.
OCL 15 has a unique history. The district created by the Onondaga County Legislature in 2012 was one of the “metro-government” districts the fused city and suburban neighborhoods together. This was a novel concept proposed by a young Ryan McMahon who was the sitting 3rd district councilor in the City of Syracuse. He also was an appointed GOP member on the county redistricting commission that drew the map. He then ran and won the district using his familiarity with the Syracuse portion of the district to win a seat with Democratic enrollment advantages. McMahon was made Onondaga County Legislature Chair upon his election and then in 2019 was tapped to replace outgoing County executive Joannie Mahoney. Since 2019 the seat swung back to the Democratic party as Bill Kinne came out of retirement to win the seat in 2019 and 2021. In 2021 the Republicans on the redistricting commission decided to make it a city only seat and is now drawn as a solidly Democratic seat. Now in 2023 Bill Kinne and Ryan McMahon face each other for the County Executive spot.
This made the current makeup of OCL 15 much more Democratic with a smaller number of voters than the old district. The partisan breakdown is 61% Democrat (9,552 Voters), 11% GOP (1,766 Voters), and 23% non-enrolled (3,592 voters). OCL 15 is made up of three distinct regions for the purpose of my article. There is the western region which makes up the near west side has 5,324 voters (34%). The valley that makes up the southern most potion of the city of Syracuse and has 5,843 voters (37%). And the Eastern portion which is mostly the university and Westcott neighborhoods making up 4,531 voters (29%).
In a new feature I am bringing to the #weeklywonk this year I am doing a heat map for each political subdivision. I will be looking at the current partisan makeup of each individual ED and heat mapping its partisan lean based on the advantage for the democrats and GOP. Looking at the heat map we really see that OCL 15 has very little diversity in terms of partisan makeup. While there is some fluctuation all election districts are rated in the highest category of a +20% or more partisan lean toward the Democrats. The election districts do range from a low of +23.58% Democrat to a high of +66.73%.
OCL 15 was drastically changed during redistricting, so it is helpful to look at the changes over time before redistricting and after. This district was following the pattern of most of the suburban and Syracuse districts where the Democrats and non-enrolled gained while the GOP continually lost ground. Democrats gained 1245 voters between 2012 and 2022. Republicans lost 1,059 voters. The non-enrolled gained 652 voters. However, the drastic change came after redistricting as the Geddes portion was shed for the University area of the city. In one year after redistricting Democrats gained 733 additional voters in one year, whole the GOP lost 2,430 voters and the non-enrolled lost 1,377 voters.
All the regions of Onondaga County Legislative District 15 are overwhelmingly Democratic but there are some variations. The most Democratic region is eastern university section that was added to the district with a +58.77 Democratic lean. This is followed by the western region with a +54.04 Democratic lean. The valley is the lease Democratic in comparison but still way more Democratic than most areas of the county with a +38.44 lean.
Looking at the growth of voters since the last redistricting cycle we see a massive drop-off in voters thanks to redistricting. Overall, the legislative district lost 3,486 voters. That is almost entirely due to redistricting which replaced suburban areas with urban areas. Urban areas tend to be more populous but have less of a percentage of registered voters. However, if we compare the regions of the new district to the same areas in 2012, we do see there is some growth in voters, as the area grew by 1,085 active voters. The largest portion of that growth is in the valley with a gain of 507 voters. The East grew by 423 voters. The west, like many inner-city areas, grew the least only adding 155 voters.
Redistricting really makes looking at the long-term Democratic trend troublesome. Redistricting alone shifted this district +25.50% more Democratic. As we compare the regions in the new district to how they were in 2012, we can expect it to get more Democratic over time. The eastern university area grew 13.76% more Democratic since 2012. The Valley also grew at a brisk rate at 12.30%. The western portion only grew +5.48% more Democratic, but that is because it already was very Democratic to begin with.
The hardest thing to try and discern in this district is exactly how it might perform because of the radical redraw during redistricting. The best we can do is look at past performance and consider the massive 25.50% swing to the Democratic side. The old OCL 15 district performed consistently 7-9% better than Onondaga County as a whole. In 2022 Governor Hochul won this district with 61.97%% of the vote, 8.19% more than her totals in Onondaga County. In 2021 Anthony Brindisi won this district with 61.47% of the vote in his race for Supreme Court, 8.97% ahead of his totals in Onondaga County. In 2020 President Biden won this district with 66.40% of the vote, 7.52% ahead of his win total in Onondaga County. In 2019 Mark Kolinski won this district with 56.38% of the vote, 8.65% ahead of his total in Onondaga County. In 2021 Bill Kinney won re-election to this district by 14.02% margin.
Since Bill Kinne is running for County executive this year, the district is an open seat. Maurice Brown won the Democratic primary for this district. He is facing a registered republican who is running as an independent in the general election. You can follow his campaign here: https://www.facebook.com/ElectMauriceBrown.
That is, it for this week’s edition of the #WeeklyWonk. I have finished my investigations into the Towns of Onondaga County. I will do one more #WeeklyWonk before the General Election as I look at Onondaga County one more time and how it has changed over the last year. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 