Let’s re-examine the results of the 2007 Democratic Party primary for Greenburgh Town Supervisor – the last such contested primary until this Sept. 10th. After the close race of 2005, Paul Feiner appeared very vulnerable. An axis of opposition stretched from Irvington to Ardsley village to the Edgemont school district. Support in several neighborhoods was tepid at best. Most ominous for Feiner was that he had barely held Hartsdale (defined here as 10530 within the Greenburgh Central school district) – the largest single voting community in the town of Greenburgh with 16% of the Democratic primary vote. With its fusion of middle-class single family homes and apartments, Hartsdale is difficult to analyze. Feiner did well in the single-family home neighborhoods of Hartsdale, but lost outright several of the apartment complex voting districts (41, 56, 57, 71). It was surprising that Hartsdale apartment dwellers – those least immediately impacted by property tax hikes – would oppose Feiner along with many of the higher property value districts.
Putting substantive issues aside for a moment, it must be recognized that Paul Feiner is a formidable politician. The “Our Campaigns” website shows his 14-3 record in primaries and elections. Feiner’s only losses came when he went above his weight class to challenge first Nick Spano for state senate way back in 1988 and then Ben Gilman for congress in 1998 and 2000 (Feiner actually fared better against Gilman than any other Democratic candidate in many years). http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=2036
2007, however, would be the test of Feiner’s future in Greenburgh. In 2005, a swing of only 100 votes would have defeated Feiner. Would 2005 prove to be the start of a downward trend that signaled the end of his career in 2007? The numbers speak for themselves. Here's the village breakdown followed by Unincorporated Greenburgh broken down by school districts:
| VILLAGE | VOTING DIST. | TOTAL | BERGER | % | FEINER | % | FEINER ^ FR. 2005 | TURNOUT ^ FR. 2005 |
|---|
| TARRYTOWN | 1-7, 55, 74, 76 | 471 | 100 | 21% | 367 | 78% | 77% | 29% |
| IRVINGTON | 8-11, 60, 79 | 368 | 111 | 30% | 251 | 68% | 55% | -6% |
| DOBBS FERRY | 12-17, 58, 65. 80 | 598 | 173 | 29% | 421 | 70% | 51% | 15% |
| HASTINGS | 18-23, 52, 59 | 773 | 161 | 21% | 602 | 78% | 64% | 10% |
| ARDSLEY | 24, 25, 53, 54 | 369 | 147 | 40% | 207 | 56% | 103% | 13% |
| ELMSFORD | 26-28 | 161 | 47 | 29% | 98 | 61% | 31% | 46% |
| 2007 TOTAL | | 2740 | 739 | 27% | 1946 | 71% | 63% | 13% |
| | | GREEN. | | FEINER | | | |
| 2005 TOTAL | | 2418 | 1168 | 48% | 1193 | 49% | | |
| UG SCHOOL DIST | VOTING DIST. | TOTAL | BERGER | % | FEINER | % | FEINER ^ FR. 2005 | TURNOUT ^ FR. 2005 |
|---|
| EDGEMONT SD | 33-35, 49, 69, 70 | 630 | 359 | 57% | 263 | 42% | 29% | 2% |
| HARTSDALE GC | 36-41, 56, 57, 66, 71, 72, 75 | 1036 | 385 | 37% | 631 | 61% | 21% | 2% |
| FAIRVIEW GC | 42, 44-46, 61, 63, 64, 78 | 967 | 301 | 31% | 613 | 63% | 40% | 27% |
| POCANTICO SD | 29, 68, 83* | 179 | 61 | 34% | 110 | 61% | 24% | 16% |
| VALHALLA SD | 47, 48, 67 | 342 | 84 | 25% | 242 | 71% | 35% | 22% |
| ARDSLEY SD | 32, 43, 50, 62 | 421 | 132 | 31% | 286 | 68% | 20% | -2% |
| ELMSFORD SD | 51, 77, 81 | 156 | 58 | 37% | 92 | 59% | 59% | 48% |
| TARRY/ELM MIX | 30 | 68 | 28 | 41% | 40 | 59% | -13% | 8% |
| IRV/ELM MIX | 31 | 58 | 20 | 34% | 38 | 66% | 23% | 12% |
| ARD/HASTING | 73 | 77 | 25 | 32% | 49 | 64% | | |
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| MYSTERY | 82 | 7 | 0 | 0% | 7 | 100% | | |
| 2007 TOTAL | | 3943 | 1453 | 37% | 2369 | 60% | 32% | 14% |
| | | GREEN. | | FEINER | | | |
| 2005 TOTAL | | 3454 | 1618 | 47% | 1790 | 52% | | |
It turns out that 2005 was an aberration. 2007 proved to be another impressive Feiner electoral victory: one of many since he first defeated the long-time incumbent to become Greenburgh Supervisor back in 1991. Feiner’s political skills were most manifest in this remarkable turnaround from 2005 as he both increased voter turnout by 14% and raised his vote total by an astounding 45%! Previous opposition holdouts fell easily to Feiner’s onslaught. Feiner won both Irvington and Ardsley villages handily, even doubling his previous vote tally in Ardsley Only Edgemont continued to resist Feiner’s charms in 2007, and even there Feiner increased his vote tally by almost 30%, gaining 43% of Edgemont’s vote. With this almost complete triumph, winning two-thirds of the Greenburgh vote, Feiner thoroughly discouraged the opposition which had gained hope of toppling him after 2005’s near-miss. Feiner had reasserted the control and regained the popularity he had enjoyed with the Democratic Party voters in the town of Greenburgh since his first victory in 1991.
How did Feiner pull off this rout? One number that jumps out is Feiner’s 63% increase in his vote total in the villages. Where Feiner had won 49% of the villages vote in 2005, only two years later he took 71%. One source claims that Feiner had focused on this weakness by running a “villages first” campaign. Whatever “villages first” means, it certainly proved incredibly successful. Another intriguing number is Feiner’s increase of 40% in his numbers in Fairview (defined here as the Greenburgh Central school district excluding the 10530 zip code) from 2005 to 2007, which was his largest increase in the major UG communities. But even these achievements do not explain Feiner’s across-the-board double digit percentage increases, even in Edgemont. Any theories?
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