mapping new york’s presidential primary
TRANSCRIPT
Mapping New York’s Presidential Primary (with an emphasis on NYC)
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City Limits/Gotham Gazette discussion“Our Turn: The 2016 Campaign Comes to NYC”
Steven RomalewskiCUNY Mapping ServiceThe Graduate Center / City University of New Yorkwww.electionatlas.nyc
April 2016
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Who Can Vote in New York State?
5.3 million registered Democrats.
2.6 million registered Republicans.
It’s a closed primary, so the other 2.9 million registered voters in NYS – 27% – are shut out.
Data source: NYS Board of Elections, as analyzed by Center for Urban Research, CUNY Graduate Center
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Democratic enrollmentIt’s a Democratic state – no county below 20% Democrats.
Downstate is largest concentration:•2.7 million Dems in NYC;•Almost 1 million on LI & Westchester combined.
Some concentrations in upstate counties (Tompkins, Albany) & cities (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse).
Data source: NYS Board of Elections, as analyzed by Center for Urban Research, CUNY Graduate Center
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GOP enrollmentOutside cities, GOP enrollment is substantial (generally 30% or more per county).
But density is key:•Hamilton Co. has largest % GOP (59%), but only 2,500 Republicans in county covering 1,700 sq mi.•Brooklyn's voter pop. is only 8% GOP, but Brooklyn is home to 100,000 Republicans in a county covering only 70 sq mi.
Data source: NYS Board of Elections, as analyzed by Center for Urban Research, CUNY Graduate Center
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Who will likely vote?
Past elections can guide us – though “past performance is no guarantee of future results” especially in this particularly unpredictable season.
In most recent presidential primaries:•Dem turnout in 2008 was 37%•GOP turnout in 2012 was 7%
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How the vote results will matterPopular vote•who wins the state; bragging rights; momentum toward conventions.
Delegate count•allocated mainly by Congressional district; direct impact on who gets nominated for general election.
Tea leaves•what will local results mean for 2017 (and beyond).
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2008 Democratic primary / NYSHillary Clinton vs Barack Obama •Not surprisingly, Clinton did well statewide (she won popular vote ~58%-40%) especially in major cities, and also strong vote share in upstate rural counties.•She received 139 of 232 delegates (though eventually lost the nomination).•Clinton likely hoped the 2008 map in New York would be how 2016 would look, but for the strong candidacy of Bernie Sanders.
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2008 Democratic primary / NYC
•In NYC, the vote pattern within the city was interesting. Obama did well in the city's predominantly African American & Afro-Caribbean neighborhoods (the orange and red on the following map). •Those are battleground communities this time around, so we'll see if Sanders is able to come close to Obama's support or if the conventional wisdom holds and Clinton does well there.
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2014 Democratic primary / NYSGov. Andrew Cuomo vs. Zephyr Teachout•There was no Democratic presidential primary in NY in 2012. In 2014, the primary between Gov. Cuomo and Zephyr Teachout is interesting and perhaps instructive in 2016 for several reasons.•Teachout was a liberal, progressive, insurgent candidate, and did surprisingly well – the orange/red counties in the following map.
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2014 Democratic primary / NYC•In NYC, Teachout won traditionally liberal (and largely white) neighborhoods of Park Slope, Chelsea, Upper West Side (the green shaded election districts on the next map).•Ultimately, though, she lost big in the city and lost statewide. •If Bernie Sanders is studying her campaign this year, he will need a strategy to expand the support she received substantially beyond a small, concentrated area in NYC and several less-populated counties upstate.
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Primary voters in NYC•Relatively few Democrats have voted in all recent Democratic primary elections (less than 170,000 Democrats voted in the 2008 presidential, 2013 mayoral, and 2014 gubernatorial primaries). But more than a million Democrats voted in at least one of these primaries. The next map shows where these Democratic primary voters are located.•It’s a mixed picture. Several areas on the map with substantial concentrations of Democratic primary voters (shown with dark blue hues) align with the neighborhoods that Clinton won in 2008 (such as Upper East/West sides, upper Manhattan, Riverdale, Hasidic Williamsburg, and central/northeast Queens). •But others do not, such as parts of southeast Queens, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, and lower Manhattan. These neighborhoods supported Obama in 2008, and several of them supported Zephyr Teachout in the 2014 gubernatorial primary.
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“de Blasio effect”?•The following map shows Democrats who voted in the 2013 general election (presumably for de Blasio).•But these areas are not necessarily Clinton supporters:
• Park Slope/downtown Brooklyn supported Teachout in ‘14 (perhaps leaning toward Sanders this time around);
• Central Brooklyn/southeast Queens supported Obama in ‘08 (perhaps supporting Clinton this year if polls are right about her African American support, but perhaps not).
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For more info, contact:
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Steven [email protected]
@sr_spatial
CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban ResearchThe Graduate Center / CUNY
365 Fifth Ave., Room 6202New York, NY 10016
www.urbanresearch.orgwww.electionatlas.nyc