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 forty-eight.
NY Senate district 48 is a decidedly Democratic Senate district. Democrats make up 75,150 voters or 39% of the 193,209 active registered voters of the district. This represents the largest plurality. The GOP makes up just 53,150 voters {27%). The non enrolled are a close third with 51,248 voters (26%). Democrats have a +11.36% advantage. The district itself spans two different counties, but really 4 different distinct regions. The Western and southern portions of Onondaga County are the largest plurality in the district with 38% (74,210) of the active voters. The City of Syracuse is just behind with 37% (71,490) voters. That means Onondaga County makes up 75% of the active voters of the district. The whole of Cayuga county makes up the remaining portion. This county is broken into the city of Auburn at 8% (14,769) and the rest of Cayuga County at 17 % (32,240) of the active registered voters.
The Senate districts in Central New York were radically redrawn under the special master maps of 2022. The old district represented by NY Senator Rachel May spanned east into Madison and Oneida county under the old district name of #SD53. This district was trending Democratic but undersized as it was represented by Senator Dave Valesky of the IDC and treated favorably in the GOP Senate who controlled Senate redistricting. Senator May won a primary in 2018 and the seat as the #SD53 became more and more Democratic and the notion of the IDC giving the GOP Senate control became untenable. The Special Master map in 2022 gave all the City of Syracuse to the newly numbered #SD48. But moved it westward in Cayuga County. Since 2022 the district has remained basically stagnate with Democrats losing 907 voters, the GOP losing 305 voters, and the non-enrolled gaining 635 voters. With two urban cores in the district like Auburn and Syracuse registrations are bound to grow drastically in a Presidential year as cities tend to lose registration between Presidential cycles and gain in the closing months of the campaign.
The four different regions of #SD48 are politically very different. The City of Syracuse is the most polarize region as Democrats have a +42.20% registration advantage and the non-enrolled dwarf the GOP. The City of Auburn is the second-best region for Democrats with a +13.66% advantage, though the GOP remain in solid second place there. The southern and western portions of Onondaga County have a slight GOP advantage with +6.60 registration advantage for Republicans. Though the Democrats and Non-enrolled are almost tied in this portion for 2nd place. The non-Auburn portion of Cayuga County is the most GOP friendly of the district with the GOP having a +15.91% registration advantage. Though even in this portion of the district Democrats are in a solid second place above the non-enrolled.
As far as performance of the district we can only look at three races to see how the district will perform. Thanks to NY Redistricting and You we can see how this district would have performed in 2020 for the Presidential race and Joe Biden won the district by +18.20%. In 2022 Governor Hochul despite facing issues in upstate New York was also able to win this district, though only by +3.30%. Rachel May was able to win this district in her 2022 re-election by +7.53% though she was helped by a conservative party splitter. In fact, all three of her elections there have been a third-party splitter. In 2018 Dave Valesky remained on the ballot on the independence line but she still won by 13.77% and in 2020 a libertarian candidate was on the ballot, and she won by 10.09%. Despite having third party entrants in each race Senator May won her vote between 49 and 52% of the vote making it unlikely the third-party entrants made a deciding difference in the race.
Last year I introduced heat maps as a way of showing the complex makeup of the political subdivisions that will have races this year. #SD48 has some of the highest variety of political polarization of any district we will see this year. The dark blue (DEM +20%) of the City of Syracuse shows the Democratic domination there. That is followed by the solid blue (DEM +10-14%) domination Democrats have in the City of Auburn. Outside of those subdivisions we see only a few borderline towns represented by the light purple (DEM 0-4%) where Democrats have a token advantage and Dark purple (GOP 0-4%) where the GOP have the token advantage. The rest of the towns have a variety of Republicans advantage from the pink (GOP +5-9) with slight advantage, red (GOP +10-14%) where the Republicans have solid advantage, burgundy (GOP +15-19%) where the Republicans have a significant advantage and dark red (GOP +20%) where the Republicans have dominance.
Despite the geographic dominance for the GOP, the plurality of voters resides in the Democratic towns of Syracuse and Auburn with 86,259 voters or 44.5%. The 31 GOP towns band together to have 77,486 voters or 40.0%. The 4 borderline towns of Onondaga, Van Buren, Owasco and Ledyard have 29,964 voters or just 15.5%.
There will be a GOP primary for #SD48 in June. Republicans Caleb Slater and Fanny Villareal. Senator Rachel May will be on the Democratic and Working Families line. The conservative party endorsed Caleb Slater but in a paperwork error he will not appear on the Conservative line. Unless someone files independent nominating paperwork at the end of May that means for the first time there will be a head-to-head contest this fall with Rachel May and the winner of the GOP primary.
That is, it for this week’s edition of the #WeeklyWonk. Next week I will look at the Town of Lysander which is having a GOP primary this fall for the vacant Town Board race. This town has a vacancy this year because of a Democratic win last year and in a Presidential year and a GOP primary this is a possible pickup for Democrats in 2024. As always you can find it on dustinczarny.com where you can subscribe for email notifications for content and election news updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 