The Weekly Wonk: NY Assembly District 128

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 128th represents towns of Dewitt, Onondaga, and Salina and a good portion of the City of Syracuse in Onondaga County. AD 128 represents this district serving from 2008-10 and continuously since 2012.

NY Assembly District 128th is inside Onondaga County. This means that this weekly work can solely rely on data from the Onondaga County Board of Elections. As of May 31, 2026, we see the district has 78,865 active voters. Democrats hold a large plurality with 34,011 voters (43%). The non-enrolled are second, with 23,660 voters (30%). The GOP is a distant third with 16,875 voters (21%). Rounding out the registration is the other category (2,787, 4%), Conservative Party (1,042 1%), and Working Families (490, 1%). The Syracuse portion has the greatest plurality in the district with 29% (22,602 voters) of the active voters. In a remarkably close second place is Salina with 28% (22,105 voters). Dewitt is third with 22% (17,686 voters) and Onondaga is close fourth with 21% (16,472 voters). Overall, this district split even between these four political subdivisions.

As we noted in the last couple of weeks, 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 128 there was no change in the 2012, 2022 & 2024 maps. There were also only minor changes around borders inside the City of Syracuse portion of the district. One of the advantages of having a district inside Onondaga County is getting up to date registration information. But this is why we see a major drop in registrations in n2026. The mail check cards along with NVRA and National Change of Address. All of this is how we clean our voting rolls by taking voters off the active rolls that have mail returned. This adversely affects the City of Syracuse and specially the east side with high student voter population who are very transitory in non -presidential years, This is why the growth of the district since 2016 is essentially flat, with growth only being 2,525 voters, a growth rate of 3.31% slower than the growth rate we saw in Onondaga County during that period of 7.63%.

Focusing on the district’s four political subdivisions reveals how the City of Syracuse portion dominates the district. While overall the City of Syracuse portion is not that much more in voters than the other three, the extreme partisan domination of Democrats in the district shapes the partisan leans of the district. Democrats enjoy a +53.38% partisanship lean with Democrats have seen times more and non-enrolled have over three times more voters than Republicans. However, Democrats also dominate the towns of Dewitt (+15.37%) and Salina (+9.05%). The town of Onondaga even has a border line Democratic lean of +2.14%. What is also interesting is even in the towns non-enrolled outnumber the Republicans.

Another advantage to analyzing a district inside of Onondaga County is more data readily at hand. This allows me to get a little more granular on our heat map. In this map I color code the leanings of every election district in the 128th. Here we see that Syracuse is dominant blue but so are portions of Dewitt Salina, and Onondaga that border the city. In fact, all of Salina districts have a Democratic lean. There are only seven election districts in the entire district, one in Dewitt, and six in Onondaga that have definitive GOP leans. The are also five more election districts with borderline GOP leans noted by the dark purple (3 in Onondaga and two in Dewitt. Outside of that everywhere on the map has a Democratic lean, and often it is definitive.

Looking at the district’s partisan trends the stableness of the district has led to flat partisan baselines of Democrats and Republicans. Since 2016 Democrats have only gained 209 voters. In the inverse the GOP has done a tad bit worse, losing 968 voters since 2016. Like most districts the non-enrolled surge is prevalent. Since 2016 non-enrolled have gained 4,438 voters. The rise of the non-enrolled and flattening of the Democratic growth is also flattening the ideological gain of this district. When we add the WFP to the Democratic column and the conservatives in with the Republican the difference is the ideological leaning of the district. The district grew consistently from 2012 (+17.99%) to 2021 (+23.12%). However, as the partisan lines flatlined and the non-enrolled grew, we have seen a retreat since then to just +21.03% in 2026.

Once again, the fact this district lays entirely inside of Onondaga County I have more tools to use to get a good picture of the district. This year I wanted to look at the age registered voters to get an idea of the differences in different communities. Eagle-eyed readers will see that the average age of Onondaga County has risen a bit to 51.05 years (from 50.87 in March). That is because of the mail checks that I mentioned earlier disproportionally affects the SU Student population and younger population that are more transient and less likely to update their address. This does not mean they will not get to vote if they are still here, they will just have to update their address with us or vote by affidavit. The age groups are typical with an even split amongst the groups and the under 50 groups having a large non-enrolled population as compared to 51+ groups. The differences in ages really come in the Towns and Syracuse portion. All three towns Dewitt (52.19), Salina (51.80) and Onondaga (51.47) are older than the average age of the county and Syracuse portion (48.38) is much younger. This is another way Syracuse exerts its dominance on the district.

Now that we are back in Onondaga County, I can use our system to look at the comparison races for this year. This gives us an idea of how this district performs in comparison to the rest of the county in similar races. First off, we look at the last result in the district itself in 2024. Pam Hunter won re-election with 26.04% of the vote. This is a little behind where Mannion for Congress (+31.19%) and Kamala Harris (+29.61) ran in the district. In the mid-term year in 2022 Governor Hochul won the district by 21.72% and Fran Canole won the district by 25.46%. This district performs differently in odd years with Emily Essi’s county clerk race only winning the seat by 16.02% and the 2021 Supreme Court race, Brindisi won this district by 21.49%. Still, it is a solidly performing Democratic district the six comparative races the district averaged +25.46% for the Democrats while Onondaga County averaged +8.73% in those races.

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 129 represented by Bill Magnarelli. Once again, we are on 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.

Democrats flipped control of the Onondaga County Legislature in 2025. Will they keep it? – Central Current

Czarny added that Democrats were gaining in voter registration in almost every town in Onondaga County. Cicero, represented by Tim Burtis, was the one exception, he said.

“Thirty years ago, when I first got involved in politics here, this was a very red county,” said Czarny. “It is not anymore. It is a very light blue, if purple, county.

Still, Czarny added, elections could be surprising. He would not have been able to predict last year’s blue wave in the spring of 2025, and it would be hard to be certain what November could hold.

Democrats flipped control of the Onondaga County Legislature in 2025. Will they keep it?

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Commissioner in a Car: Independent Nominating Petitions.

In this week’s edition I am back in my own car! But more importantly it is the last day of Independent Nominating Petitions. I go over what this means and why it isn’t so independent after all. However it is part of the weave of creating our general election ballot. Also CIAC will now be on Tuesday’s. So tune in each week or subscribe at dustinczarny.com.

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The Weekly Wonk: NY Assembly District 127

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.

New York’s even-year election law consolidates ballots and raises stakes for local races – WAER

“Government works better when all of the citizens make choices,” said Onondaga County Board of Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny. “With this ballot drop-off, you’re still going to have 50%, 60% more voters voting in these elections than ever before.”

https://www.waer.org/news/2026-05-22/new-yorks-even-year-election-law-consolidates-ballots-and-raises-stakes-for-local-races?_amp=true

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The Weekly Wonk: NYS Assembly District 126

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 start my look at the 4 Assembly districts that represent Onondaga County. NY Assembly district 126th represents the Western and southern towns of Onondaga County as well as the City of Auburn and the middle portion of Cayuga County. It is the only state district where a GOP representative holds office.

NY Assembly District 126th spans two counties, Onondaga and Cayuga, 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 97,042 active voters. The plurality is in the GOP with 33,935 voters (35%). Democrats are second with 28,525 voters (29%) but not by much. Right on their heels are the non-enrolled with 28,106 voters (29%). Rounding out the registration is the other category (3,825, 4%), Conservative Party (2,230 2%), and Working Families (421, 1%). The Onondaga County portion is the lion share of not only land space but active voters with 70% (68,114) of the voters. The Cayuga County portion is just 30% (28,928) of the voters.

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.  Though in the case of AD 126 (and most Assembly Districts) there was no change in the 2022 and 2024 map. Still there was a massive change between the 2012 and 2022 map that grew the voter amount as Onondaga County became the biggest portion of the district. Since 2016, mostly because of redistricting, the Assembly district has grown by 10,833 voters, a growth rate of 16.75% far outpacing the growth rate we saw in Onondaga County during that period of 7.63%.

The 2022 redistricting radically reshaped AD 126. It used to span the southern towns of Cayuga, the southwestern towns of Onondaga and portions of Cortland and Chenango counties. The 2022 redraw excised the Cortland and Chenango portions, shifted the Cayuga County towns to the middle of the county (though keeping Auburn) and adding all the southern and west towns, including the populous town of Lysander and Van Buren in the Onondaga County portion. By registration, the Cayuga County portion of the district is the more Democratic portion residing in the borderline GOP +0-4% range on the heat map. The Onondaga County portion is in the lean GOP +5-9% on the heat map.

As we focus more on the two county portions of the district, we see it is not as straight forward as it may have looked on the heat map. The Onondaga County portion shows the GOP have a +7.30% with Republicans outnumbering Democrats by over 5k voters. However, we also see the non-enrolled are in second place also outnumbering Democrats. The Republicans in Cayuga County portion only outnumber the Democrats by less than four hundred voters and only enjoy a +0.63% advantage in the district. The non-enrolled here are solidly in third place. The non-enrolled, especially in Onondaga County, may explain a unique phenomenon in performance of the district we will examine at the end of this article.

Looking at the district’s partisan trends, the major regional changes in 2022 had negligible effect on the balance between Democrats and Republicans. Since 2026, Democrats have gained 2,503 voters and Republicans have gained 2,049. Non-enrolled voters saw the largest increase, rising by 7,855 over that period. When Conservative and Working Families, voters grouped with their ideological counterparts, the district has become slightly less Republican leaning since 2012, shifting from a 9.30% right lean to 7.49% today. Even so, that trend has reversed since the GOP advantage reached its low point of 6.25% in 2022.

When we look at the last five e3lections in NY Assembly District 126, there is an interesting phenomenon happening. When we examined the Onondaga County portion of the district it appeared to be a more GOP friendly land than the Cayuga portion. However, performance wise over the last five cycles, including the last two that the current maps were in place, the Onondaga County portion of the district performed better for the Democrats (though still GOP leaning) than the overall results. This suggests that turnout in the city of auburn Democrats remains low and non-enrolled in Onondaga County tend to be more favorable to Democrats than their Cayuga County counterparts. Last cycle’s matchup, Ian Phillip’s was the closest of the last five races, but still a 10.03% loss which is more than the registration makeup of the district would suggest. Still, it was also the best performance by a Democrat in the Onondaga County portion and suggests that the key to winning this district is to do better in the Onondaga County portion despite its apparent registration disadvantage.

That is, it is for this week’s edition of the #weeklywonk. Next week I will continue my look at the county Assembly districts with AD 127 represented by Al Stirpe. It spans the Northeastern portion of our county and dips into Madison County. As always, you can subscribe to dustinczarny.com for all content and election news updates.

Commissioner in a Car: Check Your Mail

On this week’s episode I talk about two major pieces of mail coming to voters across Onondaga County. The Annual Mail Check Card is already hitting doors. We also have ballots for the June primary going to all Democratic voters in Onondaga County and a few GOP voters in Pompey. Check it out.

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The Weekly Wonk: The 50th NYS Senate District 2026

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 look at the other Senate district, Senate district fifty encompassing the west, east, and northern suburbs as well as the southern part of Oswego County.

Senate District 50 spans two counties, so this week’s analysis relies on the New York State Board of Elections enrollment files dated February 20, 2026. On that date, the district had 219,485 active voters. Republicans made up the largest group with 71,726 voters (33%), followed by Democrats with 68,177 (31%) and non-enrolled voters with 65,829 (30%). The remaining voters included 8,410 in the “other” category (4%), 4,423 Conservatives (2%), and 920 Working Families Party members (<1%). Oswego and Onondaga counties are the major divides in SD 50. Although the Oswego County portion covers more geographic area, it contains just 56,901 voters, or 25% of the district total. The Onondaga County portion includes the northern towns of Clay and Cicero, the eastern towns of DeWitt and Manlius, and the western towns of Geddes and Camillus. Together, those towns account for 162,584 active voters, or 74% of the district.

The story of NY Senate District 50 revolves around the redistricting of 2022. The district used to be partially in Syracuse (though only a small chunk), then spread north and west into Cayuga County. The 2022 map, drawn by a special master appointed by the NY Supreme court, came about after the NY Appeals court deemed the legislature drawn map unconstitutional. Unlike the Congressional map, the special master map remains the map today. The NY Independent redistricting Commission never redrew them as they did the Assembly and Congressional maps. That is why you see such a large population change between 2021 and 2002, and why you will see stark differences in the partisan makeup later. It is now a more populous district than before, in fact it has gained 29,747 voters since 2016. That resulted in a +15.68% difference, over double the growth Onondaga County saw at the same time (+7.63%).

In the heat map we can really see the stark differences between the two halves of the district. The northern Oswego district is smaller, but decidedly more partisan. All together the district has one of the highest GOP ratings we have, in the strong GOP 15-19% dark red stage. The Onondaga County district has three times more voters than the Oswego portion but not as polarized. The suburbs lean Democrat but not as republican as Oswego County. This puts the Onondaga County portion in the borderline blue +0-4% Democrat range.

When we dive into the details of these two portions of the district we really see how opposite the two halves of the district are. The Onondaga County Portion Democrats outnumber the GOP by 4.76%. However, the non-enrolled outnumber the GOP. In the Oswego County portion, the GOP nearly double the number of Democrats and hold a +19.85% registration advantage. The non-enrolled here outnumber the Democrats as well.

In the partisan trends of SD 50 we can see how the redistricting of 2022 really changed the makeup of the district. As we can see the old, constituted SD 50 under the legislature drawn maps that started in 2012 the district protected Senator John DeFrancisco, a longtime republican representative (Even so much as drawing a small annexation of the City of Syracuse to just encompass his residence). However, as the suburbs grew more blue under the first trump administration, the district started to have not only more Democrats but a growing number of swing vote independents. We see that in 2021 the district was a high-water mark for Democrats in both vote gap and partisan. n.  The Special Master map in 2021 altered the regional makeup drastically and “reset” the district back. its traditional republican leans. However, despite the drastic change their effect of the non-enrolled still dominates the district. Si. 2016 Democrats have added 7,116 enrolled voters, Republicans have added 8,697. The. n-enrolled has eclipsed them both together adding 15,849 voters.

We see the growing influence of independents and drastic redraw effect the last 5 Senate races. In 2016, John DeFranciso’s last runs he ran unopposed. Little known teacher John Mannion came remarkably close to beating Onondaga County Comptroller Rob Antonacci in 2018, coming to beat 1.91%. In 2020 John Mannion finally flipped this seat to the Democrats beating Angie Renna by 5.14%. In 2022 John Mannion won re-election but by one of the closest margins ever in a NY Senate race, by just ten votes after a sprawling hand count that lasted until middle of December. John Mannion left to run for Congress in 2024, and the sitting minority leader of the Onondaga County Legislature Chris Ryan beat Salina town Supervisor by a close 0.93%. Overall, the last 4 Senate races Democrats have averaged a 1.27% margin of victory while winning Onondaga County portion by 5.59%. The redraw in 2021 not only made the elections closer, but it also heightened the difference between the Onondaga County portion and the rest of the district. In 2018 and 2020 there was less than a 2% difference between the result and the Onondaga County portion. In 2022 and 2024 that difference grew to over 8%.

That is, it for this week’s Weekly Wonk. Next week we will move onto the Assembly races in Onondaga County. We will start with the only seat held by a republican, the 126th Assembly seat along the southern and western parts of county and stretching into Cayuga County. As always, you can follow along by subscribing to dustinczarny.com to get all content and election news updates.

Episode 2: USPS changes could impact your vote & the Congressional race in Dist. 22 – WAER

I appeared on WAER’s CNY Decides program to comment on how the changes to USPS postmarking policy could affect the upcoming Primary and general Election. Enjoy.

https://www.waer.org/podcast/cny-decides/2026-05-08/episode-2-usps-changes-could-impact-your-vote-the-congressional-race-in-dist-22

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Commissioner in a Car: The Primary is Set

This week’s episode I talk about where I have been the last month. I recap the petition process, the objection process and go over the primary ballot in June where Democrats all over Onondaga County have a primary to participate. I also go over my travel representing NY to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and Project for Election Infrastructure. Enjoy.

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