The Weekly Wonk: Village of Liverpool 2024

.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 sole village having a June election this year, the village of Liverpool.

The Village of Liverpool has 1,710 active voters making ranking it 8 out of 15 villages in Onondaga County.  Democrats make up 674 voters or 39% of the active registered voters making it the plurality of the district.  The GOP has just 425 voters (25%).  The non-enrolled are in second place with 503 voters (29%).  The Democrats have a +14.54% enrollment advantage.  There are only two Election districts that make up Liverpool.  Election District 3 is the west portion of the village with 979 voters (58%).  Election District 4 is the eastern portion of the village with 719 voters (42%).

The Village of Liverpool was once a GOP stronghold but has transformed tremendously since 2009.  This once blood red Village is now dominated by Democrats.  The GOP has now fallen to third place behind the non-enrolled.  Like other areas of the county the Democrats had a dramatic rise during the Trump’s Presidency from 2016 to 2020 Democrats gaining 100 voters, the Gop gained just 12 voters and the non-enrolled gained 79 voters.  Since 2021 Democrats continued gaining 46 voters, the GOP has lost 77 voters, and the non-enrolled gained 21 voters. 

The two different regions of Liverpool lean to the Democrats.  Liverpool is divided down the center with Election District 3 to the west, and Election District 4 to the east.  Both eds have Democrats in the lead, followed by the non-enrolled and the GOP in third.  Election District 3 has a +14.30% to the Democrats and ed 4 has +14.87% to the Democrats. 

 It’s a new year and we have a new addition to our four comparative races, though it will feel slightly familiar.  In addition to the Presidential race of 2020, the Supreme Court race of 2021, the Governor’s race of 2022, we will look at the County Clerk race of 2023 to compare how it performed in the political subdivision we are investigating.  This replaces the 2019 County Clerk race, but we can now compare those races as well.  This village not only is dominated by the Democrats in registration but in performance as well.  In 2020 Biden won this town by 28.72%.  Democrats also won the village of Liverpool in the 2021 Supreme Court (+22.68%), 2022 Governor (+26.75%), & 2023 County Clerk race (+21.53%), and.  However, another promising sign for Democrats is the electoral chances seem to be improving.  When comparing the 2019 County Clerk race to the 2023 County Clerk race Democrats did +6.53% better.  The Democrats also won the control of the Town Board in 2023 as well as the Village Mayor winning that race by 12.06%. 

Last year I introduced heat maps as a way of showing the complex makeup of the political subdivisions that will have races this year.  The village of Liverpool has only 2 Eds and they both fall into the solid Democratic camp (Dem +10-15%).

One final data point I wanted to bring to this #weeklywonk is a reminder of the results when previous village elections moved to November. Since 2016 four villages oved their elections from March to November, Solvay, E. Syracuse, and Tully in 2016 and Elbridge in 2019.  I decided to compare votes cast in the races before the change and after.  This is not voter turnout, but actual votes cast in village wide races.  All four villages not only saw dramatic turnout in the first election, but it was also sustained after.  Solvay saw a +38.64% increase in its Mayoral elections.  E. Syracuse saw a +88.27% increase in its Mayoral election.  Even non-contested elections had massive turnout increases.  Tully and Elbridge had +762.5% and +812% increases.  This is why Syracuse.com issued an editorial endorsing the moves in 2023, as they did in 2016.  It is also why Baldwinsville (54.89%) and Fayetteville (60.67%) voters overwhelmingly decided to move their village elections to November in March.

The are two village board races up in June as well as however they are unopposed by the Democrats.  Part of the reason for that was the timeline for finding village candidates was truncated with June elections.  However, village voters will have a chance to move their elections to November.  Proposition 1 will allow voters to move the village elections to November and save 100% of future election costs while boosting turnout and the ability to recruit candidates. 

That is, it for this week’s edition of the #WeeklyWonk.  Next week I will start my look at the Assembly Districts having races in Onondaga County.  First up is Assembly district 126, the only GOP held state legislative district in Onondaga County.  As always you can find it on dustinczarny.com where you can subscribe for email notifications for content and election news updates.