It was just a little over one year ago that democrat George Latimer was elected county executive in Westchester County, ending eight years of leadership and shared government, by republican Rob Astorino and republicans in Westchester County.
Last spring, democrat Shelley Mayer became Sen. Shelley Mayer, easily defeating republican Julie Killian in a special election for Latimer’s Westchester Senate seat, which was carved out to attempt to elect a republican. Last month, republican State Sen. Terrence Murphy’s loss to Sen.-elect Peter Harckham marked a continuation of what many see as a continued Blue Wave of progressive, indivisible support of democrats across the county.
The many Westchester towns, villages and cities that for decades were republican strongholds are now just a few (Harrison, Eastchester), with other former red republican communities like North Castle now tilting democrat and Yonkers quickly becoming all democrat.
The Village of Bronxville is located in the Town of Eastchester. It has always been one of the republican strongholds in Westchester. Most Westchester politicos would say that Bronxville is “the Alamo” for republicans, and that if it flips democrat, all is lost.
Bronxville resident Bill Gaston has provided some factual evidence and details which indicate that the Blue Wave is near. “Can it be that blue-blooded Republican Bronxville is turning blue?” he asked.
“Recent county voter registration data suggests that trend is rapidly taking place, aided by the advent of Trumpism within the GOP, and the disgust felt amongst women and younger voters in particular toward the Republican Party agenda,” writes Gaston. “This long-term trend has led to a marked shift in voting behavior in favor of Democrats at the village level. “It’s a well-known fact that formerly Republican (red) suburban U.S. congressional districts have turned increasingly Democratic (blue) in recent years – a trend accelerated by the election of Donald J. Trump as president in 2016. In the 2018 mid-terms, at least 40 formerly Republican congressional seats, many of them in suburban areas, flipped to Democratic candidates.
“This trend can be seen as well even in Bronxville, a historically solid if not at one time almost exclusively Republican enclave,” continued Gaston. “In the mid-1970s, notwithstanding the aftermath of the Watergate scandal which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon and huge losses for the GOP in Congress, Republicans still enjoyed a 4-1 partisan advantage over Democrats in the village. “That impregnable margin remained intact through the 1980s and 1990s, and well into the 2000s. Even though in presidential election years, there was some notable ticket splitting at the top of the ticket (e.g. Hillary Clinton won Bronxville in 2016, and Barack Obama in 2008), elected trustees and the mayor have been almost uniformly Republican.
“Fast forward to 2016, and voter data showed a narrowing of the GOP edge (39-31), with 30 percent unaffiliated,” he wrote. “Two years later, that eight-point margin has virtually disappeared. As the GOP of 2018 has transformed itself into the party of Trump – bye-bye to the old silk stocking Republican that was the bedrock of the Northeast GOP – Bronxville is rapidly changing its partisan stripes.
“Village figures from this year show Republicans with only 35 percent of registered voters, Democrats almost even with 33 percent of registered voters, and unaffiliated/minor party voters at 32 percent. “What has contributed to the decline of the local Republican Party? For one thing, demographics tell the story: Both locally and nationally, Republicans are hemorrhaging support among young voters and women. The GOP has become an older, predominantly male party, increasingly rural, with stagnant levels of new registrants.
“Looking at data between 2016 and 2018, Republicans lost a net 35 voters while Democrats gained 209. (The biggest jump in new registrants was among unaffiliated voters.) “This year the single-largest voting bloc of Bronxville’s 4,434 registered voters is Democratic women (915 voters), who make up 21 percent of all voters. By contrast, male Republicans (787) are the second largest at 18 percent. (Women represent 54 percent of all village voters.)
“Among younger and middle-aged voters (35 to 54), Democrats now slightly outnumber Republicans; among even younger (18 to 34) voters, Democratic margins are even stronger,” wrote Gaston. “Conversely, consistent with national trends, Republicans outnumber Democrats almost 2 to 1 in the over-75 age demographic, with a much smaller ‘advantage’ in the 55 to 74 age range. How the GOP continues to survive as the party of older voters remains to be seen.
“Meanwhile, in recent village and county elections, Democrats have begun to break through. In 2017, first-time candidate Ruth Walter garnered 47 percent of the vote against an entrenched incumbent, Gordon Burrows, in a county legislator race, which includes Bronxville and parts of Yonkers. (Ms. Walter won nearly 60 percent of the vote in Bronxville. In 2018, Natasha Nordahl came within 42 votes of winning a hotly contested village justice seat, against a village Republican, in reportedly the highest turnout ever recorded in the village.
“If a blue wave has begun to reshape local and national politics, Bronxville appears to be a case study in the reshaping of suburbia,” wrote Gaston.
