Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. In this space I try to shed light on the forces that make up the body politic in New York and Onondaga County. Each week I will look at electoral and registration data that make up a political subdivision or an election event. I continue my look at political subdivisions that will make up the General Election 2024. This week I investigate the most competitive race over the last few elections, NY Senate district fifty.
The NY senate district, drawn by the special master in 2022, is about as even a district as you can find on paper. There are 68,764 Democrats (32%), 70,921 GOP (33%), 62,226 non-enrolled (28%), 10,166 Other (5%), 4,327 Conservatives (2%), and 837 Working Families (<1%). There are two counties in the #SD50. The Onondaga County portion spans from the northeast including Dewitt, Manlius, Cicero and walking westward including Salina, Clay, Geddes, and Camillus. Onondaga County makes up 74% (160,076 voters) of the active registered voters of the district. The Oswego portion is the southern part of the county with the cities of Fulton and Oswego in it with a host of rural towns. The Oswego County portion makes up 26% (57,165) of the district.
Unlike the congressional districts and assembly districts, the Senate districts in New York have not changed since the Special Master ruling in 2022. The NY Senate districts that the Special Master drew were never re-challenged and for 2024 at least will remain the same as 2022. There was quite a wild switch in this district under the Special Master as before. Instead of a district that had part of the City of Syracuse and spanned west into Cayuga County, the special master map moved the district north for the first time into Oswego and out of the City of Syracuse all together. We can see the effect of the registration on the district in our registration graph. Before 2022 the district had been trending Democrat with democrats taking the plurality in 2018 and growing each year. After 2022 we see a large influx of Republicans into the district and stagnation of Democrats. The major parties in the district have stayed basically the same over the last few years. Democrats have lost 686 voters since 2022, The Gop have lost 387 voters. The substantial change and x-factor in the district remains the non-enrolled voters who are growing at a rapid rate. There are 2351 more non-enrolled voters in the district now than 2022, and that growth seems to be accelerating.
The two individual county portion’s partisan rankings could not be more different. Onondaga County makes up not only the most populous portion of the district with a +5.25% enrollment advantage for Democrats> This slight advantage is buttressed by the non-enrolled outnumbering the GOP. The polar opposite is Oswego County where the GOP have a 18.46% enrollment advantage and the non-enrolled outnumber the Democrat. The blood red Oswego portion is much smaller than the slightly blue Onondaga portion, but that high partisanship and regional polarity is what makes this a basically even district.
There are only two common races that we can use to compare how the SD 50 votes; 2020 US President & 2022 New York Governor. Thanks to NY Redistricting and You we see that Joe Biden carried this district by 7.20% points in 2020 based on the new lines. However, Joe Biden carried the old #SD50 district by 13.2% so we can see the shift rightward. That shift right allowed Lee Zeldin to carry this district in 2022 by 4.45%. The district seems to vote differently based on higher turnout and polarization in a presidential election. I included the 2022, 2020, and 2018 senate race in this slide as a comparison. In 2020 and 2018 the race results were on the old #sd50 lines. In 2018 the GOP candidate Antonacci won the race by 1.9%. In 2020 John Mannion won the Senate district by 4.96%. Despite the shift right, John Mannion was able to win re-election in 2022, however it was just by ten votes.
Last year I introduced a new feature, the heat map. In this graphic I try to show the different kaleidoscope of registration states inside a particularly political subdivision. For #SD50 I break the registration down by the town and/or city registration advantage for either of the major political party. The heat map really shows the polarity of this district. The towns in Oswego County have the most GOP friendly towns of any district we will analyze this year with little to balance it out. Only the city of Oswego is not a definitive GOP advantage, and it is a borderline town with a very slight Democratic advantage. The towns in Onondaga County are the opposite. The town towns of Dewitt, Manlius and Salina make up the best area for Democrats with the rest being borderline towns with Clay, Geddes, and Camillus on the Democratic side and Cicero on the GOP.
When I introduced the heat maps last year there was always a general reaction. There was an illusion that the GOP, because of the larger land area where they had partisan advantage were the dominant force in any race. That is just not always true. In a new feature I look at the number of voters in a political subdivision in Democratic, Borderline, and Republican controlled areas. There are three towns in #SD50that have a 5% Democratic enrollment or better and they represent 64,771 voters or 29.8% of the district. 5 Towns make up borderline areas with less than 5% enrollment advantage for each party for 105,711 or 48.7%. Finally, twelve towns have a GOP enrolment advantage of 5% or more, but they only make up 46,729 voters or 21.5% of the district. The race for #sd50 will most likely be won in the borderline towns that make up so much of the district. The key may come down to being able to boost turnout in those borderline towns in the Onondaga County portion of the district.
Democrats will have a primary on June 25th between Onondaga County Legislator Christopher Ryan and former Oswego County legislator Tom Drumm. The winner of which will go on to face Salina Town Supervisor Nicholas Paro on the GOP side. Whoever the Democratic candidate is, they will have to beat Paro who has been elected in a Democratic town of Salina. Democrats will have to negate this perceived strength and look to maximize in other parts of the district inside and outside of Onondaga County.
That is, it for this edition of the #weeklywonk. Thank you to Dave’s Redistricting, NY Redistricting and you, the NYS Board of Elections, and the Onondaga and Oswego County Board of elections for providing the data within this week’s article. Next week I will take a look at NY Senate district forty-eight. #NY48 is the opposite of this week with an incumbent senator Rachel May and a GOP primary to challenge her. As always you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 