Red to Blue?
By John Ennis
Posted 10-27-2006
How do you know when a region has changed from red to blue? Presidential elections, held once every four years, are an imperfect indicator. The personalities of the candidates might affect the outcome of a single election just as much as party affiliation. Also, to notice a regional switch from one party to the other, an observer needs a sample size that could take a decade or two to reliably reveal itself, even if the shift had actually occurred sometime earlier.
Relying on gubernatorial or senatorial results has similar problems. Congressional races, at every two years, are probably a bit more helpful. However, judicial elections might be the ideal bellwether. They are held every year. The candidates tend not to be as well known, nor do they usually run on distinctive personalities. Finally, the electorate is much more inclined to base their vote on party affiliation.
The problem is finding an area in New York where there are competitive elections (i.e., the Democrats and Republicans both field a candidate). New York City almost never has one. But, the northern suburbs do.
New York’s Ninth Judicial District consists of Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester counties. Each year, these five counties collectively vote for anywhere from one to six Supreme Court justices (the number varies due to retirements, deaths, and the asymmetry in which the 14-year-terms expire). The vast majority of these elections include candidates from both major parties (LexMetrics did not look at the rare race in which a cross-endorsement was made). Here are the results since 1996:
Democratic Republican
Winners Winners
1996 1 1
1997 0 2
1998 0 2
1999 0 5
2000 0 1
2001 0 4
2002 0 5
2003 0 3
2004 5 1
2005 2 0
To reiterate:
Democratic Republican
Winners Winners
1996-2003 1 23
2004-2005 7 1
Did the northern suburbs tip to blue in 2004?
Eight elections is not an overwhelming sample size to say a switch has occurred - especially over a short period of time. Nevertheless, to go 7-1 after a 1-23 stretch cannot be written off as a fluke.
There’s a lot of conventional wisdom about elections up north. Some of it was shared in this week’s story "Blues in the Burbs." One consultant feels that strong Democratic candidates for statewide office turn out the vote. The numbers above don’t indicate that. Hillary Clinton and Al Gore were on the ballot in 2000 – yet the Republicans still won that year’s judicial election. Who was the strong Democratic candidate to run statewide last year? Nobody, and the Dems won both races.
It’s only been two years – but a tilt might have occurred.
Update: Continuing the trend, the Democrats won both races in 2006.