Welcome back to the #weeklywonk. This is my weekly article on dustinczarny.com on statistics and data. Each week I look at a political subdivision having a competitive election this fall and analyze the registration, electoral, and other pertinent data that encompasses it. This helps you understand the story behind election results in our home of Onondaga County. This week I will continue my investigations of the 4 Assembly districts that represent Onondaga County. NY Assembly district 127th represents towns of Clay, Cicero and Manlius in Onondaga County as well as the town of Cazenovia in Madison County. Al Stirpe (D) represents this district serving from 2008-10 and continuously since 2012.
NY Assembly District 127th spans two counties, Onondaga and Madison, which means this week’s analysis once again relies on data from the New York State Board of Elections. Looking at the enrollment pulls of February 20, 2026, we see the district has 96,328 active voters. Democrats hold a small plurality with 31.572 voters (33%). The non-enrolled are second here are second, with 29,745 voters (31%) but not by much. Right on their heels are the GOP with 29,153 voters (30%). Rounding out the registration is the other category (3,702, 4%), Conservative Party (1,810 2%), and Working Families (346, >1%). The Onondaga County portion dominates the district with 95% (91,146) of the active voters. Dwarfed in comparison is Madison County portion with just 5% (5,182) of the voters.
As we noted last week, the story of redistricting for Assembly districts is a little different than the Senate and Congressional districts. Like the Congressional districts, Assembly members have run on three different maps of the last three cycles, but the Assembly district maps were never drawn by the NY Judiciary as they were never part of the lawsuit in 2022 thus the NY Legislature maps created in 2022 stood until a separate lawsuit required the NY IRC. Like most Assembly Districts, AD 127 there was no change in the 2022 and 2024 map. Still there was a meaningful change between the 2012 and 2022 map that got rid of the southern Onondaga County towns in the old district in favor of stretching into Madison County town of Cazenovia. This was because of the growth in voters in the Onondaga County Towns of Clay, Cicero, and Manlius. Redistricting effectively throttled the growth of the district since 2016, with growth only being 5,889 voters, a growth rate of 6.51% slower than the growth rate we saw in Onondaga County during that period of 7.63%.
The 2022 redistricting reshaped AD 127. The southern towns of Onondaga were more populous and more partisanly aligned to the right. The town of Cazenovia in Madison was not only smaller, but less partisanly aligned. This means the northern towns together are in the borderline (Democrat +0-5%) The town of Cazenovia in Madison County is also in the borderline camp but on the GOP side. This heat map shows the essential borderline nature of the district which is, in registration at least, one of the more even districts in the state.
Focusing on the district’s two county portions reveals a sharp contrast. In the Onondaga County portion, Democrats hold a narrow 2.83% edge, with Republicans in third place. The Madison County portion leans Republican by 3.15%, but it is much smaller population limits its overall influence on the district.
Looking at the district’s partisan trends, the story of this district is less about redistricting and more about the growth of Democrats in the suburbs since the Trum election of n2016. Since 2016, Democrats have gained 3,224 voters and Republicans have lost 895. Non-enrolled voters saw the largest increase, rising by 5,331 over that period. When Conservative and Working Families, voters grouped with their ideological counterparts, we see the lag in when a district may switch from Gop to Democrat as Conservatives far outnumber working families. Though Democrats overtook Republicans in 2019, it was not until 2021 the district flipped ideologically. Note this was before redistricting. There is a negligible bump for Democrats after redistricting, but it is statistically insignificant and we have seen even a small roll back since 2024.
Despite the even nature of the enrollment of the district, the last five elections in the district have not been particularly close. In 2018 Representative Al Stirpe benefited from a third party split in the district to have his biggest win of +18.44%. However, the district has given him solid wins in one-on-one matchups since then as well. In 2018 he won with 16.02%. The closest race he has had was the 2020 election but still a solid win of +9.13%. Since the redistricting in 2022 he has had solid wins with a +11.12% win in 2022 and a +13.10% win in 2024. His elections have been a model of consistency. He has averaged +13.56% win total over the last five elections. Only in 2022 and 2024 were there multiple counties in the district and its average of +12.17% mirrors the overall wins during that time.
That is all for this week’s edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week I will continue my look at the county Assembly districts with AD 128 represented by Pam Hunter. I am excited to return to races inside Onondaga County, meaning I can get fresh data, including age data, back into the analysis. As always, you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.
Dustin M. Czarny 