A political consultant recently asked me if it was true that 70% of the vote in a statewide Democratic Primary came from New York City and it’s suburbs. I responded that I have heard and believe that was true for years but have not recently checked.
So I decided to look into past primary turnout and here it was I found.
I looked at the Democratic enrollment and the turnout from the last two statewide primaries – 2000 & 2004. Neither of these years are great because the primaries were pretty ho-hum – in 2000 Hillary had a minor Primary opponent and in 2002 Andrew Cuomo withdrew right before the Primary. But I thought it was better to use them rather going back 8 years.
New York City has 53% of the enrolled Democrats and represented 60% of the 2000 and 58% of the 2002 turnout.
Nassau & Suffolk’s combined percentages of the same are 11%-7%-7%.
The northern suburbs (Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess, Orange & Putnam) are 9%-8%-9%.
So it’s true that NYC & the suburbs are a little more than 70% of the vote in a primary.
I looked at some other numbers that might interest people.
The other big Democratic area in the state is, of course, the Buffalo region. The percentages for Erie & and the 3 neighboring counties are 8%-11%-11%.
The Congressional District with the highest turnout in 2000 was the 11th (Major Owens) and in 2002 was the 15th (Charlie Rangel).
In both years, the State Senate District with the highest turnout was the 60th, which is the Buffalo district and the Assembly District with the best turnout was the 141st, which is also in Buffalo.