The Weekly Wonk: NY Assembly District 126 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 investigated the only state legislative seat in Onondaga County, Assembly District 126.

NY Assembly District 126 has 95,718 active voters as of June 2024. Democrats make up 28,922 voters or 31% of the active registered voters of the district. The GOP makes up the plurality with 33,403 voters (36%). The non-enrolled are third with 26,201 voters (28%). The GOP has a +4.68% enrollment advantage. NYAD 126 is divided into parts of two counties, Cayuga, and Onondaga. The Cayuga portion is the part of the southern portion of the county and is 30% of the assembly district (28,648 voters). The Onondaga is the Western and southern towns and make up 70% of the assembly district.

The Central NY Assembly districts were redistricted in 2022 by the Assembly, and then again in 2023 by the NYIRC by court order. However, the second round of maps were similar to the 2022 maps. Redistricting added Democrats and non-enrolled to the district. Since 2021 Democrats gaining just 1,448 voters, the GOP gained just 430 voters, and the non-enrolled gaining the most with 3,736 voters. Most of those gains came in 2022 during redistrict with Democrats and the Gop basically being in stagnation since, though the non-enrolled continues to gain.

The two counties’ portions are a little different, but it may surprise some to find out that the Cayuga County portion is the more Democratic portion of the district. The Onondaga County Portion has a +6.90-percentage lean toward the GOP. The non-enrolled in the Onondaga portion are closing in on the Democrats. In the Cayuga portion the Democrats have a slight 0.52% lead with Democrats and GOP virtually tied with the non-enrolled in third.

 When an Assembly district crosses county lines, we lose the ability to look at a few of our comparative races but we can still look at the 2022 Governor’s race and 2020 Presidential race. In 2020 Biden won this town by 2.4% but that was down 9.15% from his statewide totals. However, Lee Zeldin won this Assembly District by 9.69%. Democrats have not performed well in the last three Assembly races for this district. The lost by 12.97% in 2018, 13.57% in 2020, and 15.46% in 2022.

Last year I introduced heat maps as a way of showing the complex makeup of the political subdivisions that will have races this year. #AD126 is one of the more homogenous districts we have. Only the City of Auburn is solidly in the blue (Dem +10-15%). The town of Camillus is light purple indicating a borderline Dem lean (Dem 0-5%). The town of Owasco is dark purple with a borderline GOP lean (GOP 0-5%). The rest of the towns have a GOP lean. The towns in pink (Lysander, Marcellus, Pompey, Skaneateles, Throop, and Tully) have a slight GOP lean (GOP 5-10%). The towns in red (Elbridge, Lafayette, & Sennett) have a solid GOP lean (GOP 10-15%). The towns in burgundy (Brutus, Conquest, Mentz, Spafford) have a strong GOP lean (GOP 15-20%). Finally, the towns in dark red (Cato & Otisco) have an overwhelming Gop lean (GOP +20%).

This year in addition to the heat map I looked at the number of towns that lean to each party and the border towns. Here the makeup of the Assembly district both in number of jurisdictions and in population is decidedly red. 16 Towns with 59,045 voters are lean GOP representing 61.7% of the voters in the district. Only two towns with 21,880 voters representing 22.9% of the voters in the district are in borderline towns. Only the City of Auburn with 17,787 voters and 15.4% of the district is the only subdivision with a Democratic lean.

There is no primary in Assembly District 126 meaning the matchup is set. Assemblyman John Lemondes is the incumbent and is running on the Republican and Conservative line. The Democrats have nominated Ian Phillips, a former teacher, NYSUT union member, and Auburn school board president. Ian will have to consolidate Democratic support as well as win over the non-enrolled and even some GOP votes to win this seat. You can follow his campaign on his website https://www.ianforcny.com/

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 127, represented by Al Stirpe. As always you can find it on dustinczarny.com where you can subscribe for email notifications for content and election news updates.