Primary Analysis-palooza Part I: voters who know MJ, vote for MJ

With the exception of about 200 uncounted absentee ballots, the County Board of Elections has collected the 92 Assembly District primary voting numbers.

First the total and breakdown by town/city, with turnout.

These numbers vary slightly from the expected script. Yes, Shimsky was likely to win Greenburgh, but her hitting 60% in the town that Tom Abinanti has represented, in one way or another, for 33 years, and with such high turnout, exceeded the most optimistic forecast.   Abinanti did well in Mount Pleasant, but to win this primary, he really needed to push that margin toward 70% and get a bigger voter turnout.   With 374 votes, Yonkers was a non-factor other saving Tom perhaps 250 to 300 votes through the gerrymandered trade of Edgemont for these remnants of Yonkers.  In the end, Shimsky's victory margin was sufficiently large to render irrelevant the widely suspected Abinanti maneuver to defenestrate his Edgemont antagonists from 92AD  and exchange them for presumably more favorable Yonkers voters in anticipation of this contested primary.  Apparently even the gerrymander gods have a limit to their cynicism.    

We can break down the 92nd AD results in several ways.  Let's start with Mount Pleasant:

While Abinanti dominated the Town of Mt. Pleasant, there was very low turnout outside of the villages and he narrowly lost Sleepy Hollow.  This Mt. Pleasant success, however, came nowhere close to offsetting Shimsky's Greenburgh advantage. 

Next Greenburgh:

The first surprise is that Abinanti actually won Unincorporated Greenburgh (TOV) and by a large margin, larger than Shimsky's winning % for the entire assembly district.  Other than a tie in West Hartsdale, he won each of the six "areas" that the Greenburgh Democratic Party defines for TOV Greenburgh.  These "areas," while somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent, still give a sense of the breadth Abinanti's success in Greenburgh TOV, especially north of Dobbs Ferry Road. Abinanti's problem, however, again like in Mount Pleasant, was weak turnout in his areas of voting strength.

Conversely, look at Shimsky's villages vote count, and especially those turnout rates (25%) compared to TOV (20%) and Mount Pleasant (19%).  I highlighted Hastings' turnout for obvious reasons. With turnout rates 40% higher than any other village or area in 92AD, Hastings packs a punch double than might be expected from its relatively small population.  And these villages (except tiny Elmsford) went decisively for Shimsky.  With Abinanti winning Mount Pleasant and TOV Greenburgh comfortably, Shimsky's huge margins in five Greenburgh villages decided the outcome.  

There are other ways to contextualize the vote in Greenburgh.  I think the division of Greenburgh into (i) Rivertowns (Hastings, Dobbs, Irvington and Tarrytown), (ii) North Greenburgh (effectively north of Dobbs Ferry Road, with the village of Elmsford, and (iii) South Greenburgh (Hartsdale, Ardsley school district in TOV, and formerly Edgemont) is useful, and reflects generalizations of "communities" in Greenburgh.

Here we see even more starkly Shimsky's triumph in the four Rivertowns which, collectively, elected her and thwarted Abinanti.  If the Martians had landed and zapped the four Rivertowns and their votes on the eve of the election, Abinanti would have won. We also see, again, that Abinanti was very strong in North Greenburgh (Fairview, Fulton Park, Orchard Hill, Elmsford and its school district TOV neighborhoods, Valhalla and Pocantico Hills school districts neighborhoods, East Tarrytown and East Irvington) but lost "South Greenburgh" with Hartsdale, Ardsley Village and its school district's large TOV neighborhoods. These are areas that Abinanti dominated against Jen Williams two years ago and where Paul Feiner is voted for like a local hero. This discrepancy, between Abinanti's performance in these TOV areas, between two years ago and today, leads us to one more configuration to understand the primary results.  

Shimsky as incumbent: while Abinanti has held elected office in Greenburgh for 33 years, Shimsky is also an incumbent having represented the County #12 district in the county Board of Legislators (BOL) for the past twelve years.  While Abinanti has represented the entire 92nd assembly district for the same twelve years, Shimsky, his successor in the BOL, has represented the 46% of the 92nd assembly district's registered Democrats who live also in County #12. And do those County #12 Democrats appreciate her. I titled this blog post "voters who know MJ, vote for MJ" for a reason:

And here is perhaps the key to the outcome of the race. While Abinanti enjoyed name recognition throughout the district, he could not compete with the apparently overwhelmingly positive impression of Shimsky among the Democratic electorate who reside in her county legislative district: effectively Irvington, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings and Ardsley villages, and most of Hartsdale and the Ardsley TOV school district. Again, Abinanti won among the larger swath (54%) of 92AD voters who live outside County #12 and among those whose knowledge of Shimsky was low. However, for those familiar with both Shimsky and Abinanti as their elected officials, Shimsky's comparative favorability overwhelmed any positive impressions of Abinanti, and persuaded those County #12 residents to choose Shimsky for their assembly member.  

In Part II, I'll compare Abinanti's performance in 2022 with his success in the 2020 primary and the victory of his ally, Paul Feiner, in Greenburgh's supervisor primary last year.  Also, a look at the demographics of the voters.