Looking at the Greenburgh Supervisor Primary – Part II: Estimating Turnout
As suggested in Part I, Paul Feiner is facing the strongest primary challenge since 2005 to his perpetual reign as Greenburgh Town Supervisor. The source for this observation is the results of the June 2020 Democratic Primary where three of the four first-time candidates decisively won Greenburgh in their primaries. In the fourth race before Greenburgh Democrats last June, incumbent Tom Abinanti defied this trend by prevailing over a previously unknown challenger Jennifer Williams but by a much smaller margin than anyone would have predicted.
Is Tasha Young poised to repeat the surprise but decisive victories of Mimi Rocah, Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones and upset Feiner? Or will Paul Feiner replicate the stubborn success of Tom Abinanti and prevail once more?
At this point, we have to ask whether the June 2020 Democratic Primary was a singular event or does it point toward a new pathway for local Democratic voters?
GREENBURGH DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES 2020-2010 - turnout examples.
As indicated above, 2020 turnout was exceptional for a non-presidential primary. Reasons for this very high turnout in 2020 include: (1) intense voter engagement in advance of the presidential election between Trump and Biden; (2) high interest in political action in wake of the George Floyd/BLM rallies; (3) changes in NY election law allowing early voting and the COVID year provision of allowing no-excuse absentee balloting, and (4) the COVID-year provision of sending each registered voter an absentee ballot application.
Most of these 2020 turnout factors will not apply in 2021: instead of a contested presidential year with, many thought, the future of the Republic at stake, and with highly-financed congressional primaries on the ballot, this year the highest contested office above Town Supervisor will be Westchester county clerk. Nor is the nation now swept by massive protests and rallies and, while always possible, such conditions look less likely without the provocations of the Trump administration. While early voting is now permanent, and no-excuse absentee balloting is again permitted as the pandemic continues, voters will have to initiate the absentee ballot process by mailing in or submitting applications on-line. Many voters, especially seniors, who might assume that they will receive the applications in the mail again, may not realize their mistake until it is too late to vote.
Moreover, unlike “even year” primaries, when state-wide or national offices are contested, 2021 is an “odd year” primary where only county or local offices are typically at stake. In the four most recent “odd year” primaries in Greenburgh, the highest turnout was the 2013 Supervisor contest (the last time Feiner was opposed in a Democratic Primary) when 5992 voted – far fewer than the 15,130 Greenburgh Dems who voted for Congressional primary -candidates in 2020.
Yet, simply because of changes to New York’s notoriously restrictive voting rules that prevailed in 2013, turnout in 2021 should be significantly higher than during the previous Town Supervisor’s primary eight years ago. This year primary voters can take advantage of early voting and no-excuse absentee ballots (although unlike in 2020, Board of Elections are not currently directed to send out absentee ballot applications), neither of which were available in 2013.
ADDITION [MAY 22, 2021]; WE FINALLY HAVE SOME USABLE TURNOUT NUMBERS WITH THE SCHOOL BUDGET ELECTIONS HELD IN MAY 2021
The crucial question we struggle with is whether the 2020 primary turnout was a unique result of a confluence of circumstances or signaled increased voter engagement. Now that we have the turnout numbers for the New York school board budget elections, we can offer some perspective.
School budget elections - Westchester County Turnout
2018: 26,804
2019: 28,101
2020: 71,452
2021: 31,107
Conclusion: Turnout in the 2020 Democratic primary may be the highest for town Supervisor that we've seen in decades but is very unlikely to surpass previous numbers by any dramatic amount as turnout returns to pre-2020 levels (the highest Greenburgh supervisor primary turnout in the 21st century was 6,683 in 2007). I'm predicting turnout between 6000 and 7,500, and likely not to exceed 7,000 with county clerk and town supervisor as the two highest ballot races for Greenburgh voters.
NEXT: WHO VOTES IN GREENBURGH’S DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
No comments:
Post a Comment