Westchester and Nassau

[King of Kensington]

HRC did a fair bit better than Obama in Westchester, presumably because of her local ties and that Trump was less appealing to affluent and educated whites than Romney was.

But in Nassau - another affluent suburban county - the GOP vote was more or less the same (45.9% for Trump, 45.6% for Romney).  Perhaps the North Shore swung D and the South Shore swung R? 

In both counties, over 50% of the white population is Italian American or Jewish.

[Tintrlvr]

If you're from the NYC area, you just know.

White people in Westchester are wealthier, more highly educated and, maybe most significantly for this purpose, WASPier in background and social attitudes than white people in Nassau. There's a big prestige difference between the two: people who care about prestige live in Westchester, and people who don't live in Nassau. Westchester is more people who (or whose parents or grandparents) lived in Manhattan before they moved to the suburbs while Nassau is more people who (or whose parents or grandparents) lived in Queens before they moved to the suburbs. The Italian percentage is much higher in Nassau than in Westchester. The Jewish percentages are probably similar, but it's different sorts of Jews: more Reform in Westchester vs. more Sephardis, Orthodox and Persian Jews in Nassau. (There are no areas like the Five Towns that are dominated by Orthodox Jews in Westchester.)  There's also some development history difference: more houses in Westchester tend to be pre-WWII, while Nassau housing is mostly post-WWII.

[King of Kensington]

Yeah, LI strikes me as more insular.  Non-NY natives who end up moving to the suburbs seem to prefer Westchester and even NJ over LI.

[RI]

Trump did quite a bit better in Nassau County than in Westchester County in the GOP primaries thanks to Kasich's relatively strong performance in the latter.

[jaichind]

Where I live in Westchester, Scarsale, clearly swung toward Clinton.  We will have to look at the results on a town by town basis but my hunch is the Westchester swung toward Clinton South of White Plains and swung toward Trump North of White Plains.  Northern Westchester are a lot more like Putnum County and Duchess County.  White Plains represents the partisan division between NYC and Upstate NY.

This last weekend I drove my family to Northern Westchester for a visit to a park.  On the way there we passed by Chappaqua and I pointed out to my 5 year old son who have been following the election that Hilliary Clinton lives there.  And on the way back we passed by Donald J. Trump State Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Trump_State_Park

This part was land Trump bought years ago to build a golf course but in the end it was not approved.  So he donated the land to NY State and it was converted to a park named after him. 

[ag]

This seems to just be following a trend that's been happening over the last 10 years or so.  Inner cities going even more overwhelmingly democratic and the inner suburbs going democratic, the outer suburbs going republican and the rural areas going very republican.  Basically the further you get out from a city the more republican it gets.  If it's a big city like New York or DC it takes longer to reach the republican ring around the city.  If it's a small city like Pittsburgh the republican ring is closeby.

Nassau and Westchester both border on NYC. So, in this particular case, your explanation does not apply.

[Figueira]

Wasn't Obama's 2012 strength on Long Island largely due to Hurricane Sandy?

[King of Kensington]

Trump seems like a pretty bad fit for Westchester even if won the GOP primary there.

[King of Kensington]

Where I live in Westchester, Scarsale, clearly swung toward Clinton.  We will have to look at the results on a town by town basis but my hunch is the Westchester swung toward Clinton South of White Plains and swung toward Trump North of White Plains.  Northern Westchester are a lot more like Putnum County and Duchess County.  White Plains represents the partisan division between NYC and Upstate NY.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Trump really bombed in Scarsdale.

As for Northern Westchester, it is "home" for the Clintons.  But yes it does have more white working class people, while southern Westchester is more stark in terms of inequality (even if you have both elite whites and urban minorities voting D).

[jaichind]

Where I live in Westchester, Scarsale, clearly swung toward Clinton.  We will have to look at the results on a town by town basis but my hunch is the Westchester swung toward Clinton South of White Plains and swung toward Trump North of White Plains.  Northern Westchester are a lot more like Putnum County and Duchess County.  White Plains represents the partisan division between NYC and Upstate NY.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Trump really bombed in Scarsdale.

As for Northern Westchester, it is "home" for the Clintons.  But yes it does have more white working class people, while southern Westchester is more stark in terms of inequality (even if you have both elite whites and urban minorities voting D).

In 2012 Romney actually over-performed in Scarsdale/Eastchester/Harsdale/Bronxville so it is expected that given Trump is a poor for fit these towns.  Overall Westchester Dem/GOP partisan split is   around 2 to 1 with Southern urbanized areas being more like 3:1.  In Northern non-Hudson Westchester is it more like 1:1 and generally votes like Putnam/Dutchess counties which swung toward Trump this year.  To be fair Eastchester which is South of White Plains is heavy with Middle and Lower income White Italians voters has a slight GOP lean.  I suspect there will be a lot of hidden Trump voters in Eastchester and could very well have swung Trump.  Rest of Southern Westchester and Hudson Westchester clearly swung to Clinton.

The way to get places like Scarsdale to swing GOP is to bring up the issue of busing and bringing in section 8 housing to the Scarsdale/Eastchester/Harsdale/Bronxville area.

[King of Kensington]

Perhaps Phil Ochs had Scarsdale in mind when he wrote "Love Me I'm A Liberal."

[SingingAnalyst]

Trump seems like a pretty bad fit for Westchester even if won the GOP primary there.

I see Clinton won Westchester Co. by a 2-1 margin. The GOP non-Trump primary vote must have been heavily divided among several candidates, with many former Republicans of course voting Clinton.

[Smash255]

Italian population between the two isn't that much different.  Nassau is 21%, Westchester 18%.  Nassau is a bit whiter, 64% to 56% in Westchester, and less Hispanic 15% in Nassau to 23% in Westchester. 

Median income in Nassau is a bit higher, but per capita income in Westchester is higher.   Education levels are similar, though slightly higher in Westchester. 

Also as was mentioned there really is no Orthodox Jewish population in Westchester, parts of the Five Towns area especially around Lawrence is very Orthodox.  Northern portions of Great neck and into Kings Point have a large Persian population, which swung heavily R when Bush was in office (southern portions of Great Neck is more Secular and Asian and still strongly Democratic)

[King of Kensington]

So about a third of whites in both are Italian American and about a quarter are Jewish.  

Westchester retains more of a "WASP" image even though the ethnic composition of its white population isn't that different from Nassau. 

[Fuzzy Stands With His Friend, Chairman Sanchez]

Suffolk County, next to Nassau, is trending back to the GOP.

Suffolk has more Democratic officeholders than Nassau, but is less Democratic at the state and national level.  Trump carried it by 9 points 52-43, a county Obama carried twice.  Andrew Cuomo actually lost it by 2 points in 2014.

Suffolk is more working class than Nassau, the Hamptons nonwithstanding.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Hillary did poorly on Long Island in 2000, but her opponent was from there.

[NOVA Green]

Perhaps Phil Ochs had Scarsdale in mind when he wrote "Love Me I'm A Liberal."

Awesome! Been listening to Phil Ochs for some thirty years now....

The song could equally apply to many other communities in the Northeast and Central Atlantic regions, but the timing of the song (1966) was definitely in response to the shift in the Civil Rights movement from the Southern Jim Crow South, where the White Supremacist system had been legally effectively destroyed and the movement was shifting to Northern States, so I would imagine there would be communities in the Chicago and Cleveland area as well...

Back on topic.... is busing really an issue in Scarsdale or anywhere else in America now?

I suspect that Section 8 Housing is less of a racial deal these days, and more like communities not wanting affordable housing in their neighborhoods, because of concern that will lower their property values and a hyper-inflated fear that affordable housing is somehow correlated with crime and drugs in their communities.

I don't know Metro NYC that well, but even in heavily "White" Oregon there are neighborhoods where local residents have a kneejerk reaction to affordable housing in their neighborhoods for those two reasons listed above.

[jaichind]

Perhaps Phil Ochs had Scarsdale in mind when he wrote "Love Me I'm A Liberal."

Awesome! Been listening to Phil Ochs for some thirty years now....

The song could equally apply to many other communities in the Northeast and Central Atlantic regions, but the timing of the song (1966) was definitely in response to the shift in the Civil Rights movement from the Southern Jim Crow South, where the White Supremacist system had been legally effectively destroyed and the movement was shifting to Northern States, so I would imagine there would be communities in the Chicago and Cleveland area as well...

Back on topic.... is busing really an issue in Scarsdale or anywhere else in America now?

I suspect that Section 8 Housing is less of a racial deal these days, and more like communities not wanting affordable housing in their neighborhoods, because of concern that will lower their property values and a hyper-inflated fear that affordable housing is somehow correlated with crime and drugs in their communities.

I don't know Metro NYC that well, but even in heavily "White" Oregon there are neighborhoods where local residents have a kneejerk reaction to affordable housing in their neighborhoods for those two reasons listed above.

Busing is not an issue in Scarsdale.  There is a push by the Obama administration for section 8  housing in Westchester but that is more in Mamaroneck which is being fought every step of the way by the Westchester County Executive Astorino (which is one of the reasons he was re-elected in 2013.)  My point is that the liberalism in Scarsdale is superficial.  Once one puts actions that will put URM in their schools along with their children on the table their liberalism will disappear quite quickly and they will go over to the GOP.   In fact talking about multi-family housing in Scarsdale (read: URM other than the elite (like the Obamas) might show up since they could potentially afford such housing) was and is being activity fought in Scarsdale.    Of course I totally agree that part of it is fear of crime, drugs and hosing prices like you pointed out.   But at a subliminal level it is really about race.  I know my neighbors well

[sg0508]

Being from Nassau County originally, it's changed a lot over the years.  It's not nearly as white as it used to be, but Hillary's luster did wear off a bit over the years.  Suffolk was the far bigger swing.  The biggest race in Nassau this year was the House race, the first time in a while it was a real horse race.

[Smash255]

Being from Nassau County originally, it's changed a lot over the years.  It's not nearly as white as it used to be, but Hillary's luster did wear off a bit over the years.  Suffolk was the far bigger swing.  The biggest race in Nassau this year was the House race, the first time in a while it was a real horse race.

Where in Nassau were you from?


Suffolk did swing considerably more, which tends to make sense considering it has more of a white working class population than Nassau.  I can't pull it up now, but Newsday had a precinct map up, and it did seem like Mastic & Shirley had some of the strongest trump swings.

[Fuzzy Stands With His Friend, Chairman Sanchez]

Being from Nassau County originally, it's changed a lot over the years.  It's not nearly as white as it used to be, but Hillary's luster did wear off a bit over the years.  Suffolk was the far bigger swing.  The biggest race in Nassau this year was the House race, the first time in a while it was a real horse race.

Where in Nassau were you from?


Suffolk did swing considerably more, which tends to make sense considering it has more of a white working class population than Nassau.  I can't pull it up now, but Newsday had a precinct map up, and it did seem like Mastic & Shirley had some of the strongest trump swings.

Mastic and Shirley is the kind of place with lots of WWC Trump-type voters.  Very much unlike the nearby Hamptons.

[Gabagool102]

Where I live in Westchester, Scarsale, clearly swung toward Clinton.  We will have to look at the results on a town by town basis but my hunch is the Westchester swung toward Clinton South of White Plains and swung toward Trump North of White Plains.  Northern Westchester are a lot more like Putnum County and Duchess County.  White Plains represents the partisan division between NYC and Upstate NY.

This last weekend I drove my family to Northern Westchester for a visit to a park.  On the way there we passed by Chappaqua and I pointed out to my 5 year old son who have been following the election that Hilliary Clinton lives there.  And on the way back we passed by Donald J. Trump State Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Trump_State_Park

This part was land Trump bought years ago to build a golf course but in the end it was not approved.  So he donated the land to NY State and it was converted to a park named after him. 

Yea i pass by donald j trump state park often. Im wondering how democratic white plains is since its actually mostly houses and trump actually owns 2 buildings near that shopping center. Glad to see, people from westchester here.

[Progressive]

Nassau = Virginia
Suffolk = Ohio
Westchester = Virginia

[King of Kensington]

Italian population between the two isn't that much different.  Nassau is 21%, Westchester 18%. 

Nassau has Franklin Square and the Massapequas; Westchester has Eastchester and Harrison. 

[publicunofficial]

Westchester = White, High Income, Large College Graduate population
Nassau = White, High Income, Smaller College Graduate population