Within the Margin

As 2012 continues, we’ll spend a fair amount of time analyzing the state of play in New York’s State Senate. The Republicans are clinging to a razor-thin 32-30 majority. They appear to have the chance to redistrict themselves into a safer position, but a lot can happen between now and the adoption of a new map. Even with a favorable map, demographics and political behavior make it unlikely that they’ll return anytime soon to the larger majorities they enjoyed in  the State Senate at the start of the last decade.

We’ll also delve into whether it’s even a majority worth winning, given the chaos and legislative failure of Democrats’ brief stint in the majority in 2009 and 2010, as well as the dark clouds surrounding recent and current conference leaders like Malcolm Smith and John Sampson.

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Today, longtime Democratic senator Suzi Oppenheimer announced her retirement from the 37th District. This sets up an open seat race sure to be hotly-targeted by both parties. The 37th sits in central and southeastern Westchester along part of the I-287 corridor and the Long Island Sound shoreline, and includes all of White Plains and most of New Rochelle, along with Harrison, Mamaroneck, New Castle, North Castle, Ossining, Rye (town and city) and Scarsdale.  Notable villages and hamlets include Chappaqua, Larchmont and Port Chester.

Republicans smell blood, and immediately began talking up their chances at taking the seat. Bob Cohen was already in the race, following his narrow 2010 defeat against Oppenheimer –  a race where the outcome wasn’t known until the first week of December. A businessman and New Rochelle resident, Cohen ran a relatively moderate campaign and lost by only 730 votes. He said today that he’s eager to see the district as re-drawn by the Republican senate majority; we’re expecting the first draft of legislative maps any day now. Cohen has much to gain, obviously: during the last re-drawing, the Republicans held three neighboring Westchester seats and therefore needed to consolidate Democratic territory in Oppenheimer’s district. Since then, they’ve lost the 34th and 35th districts and can reasonably view the 37th as a better target, having seen their candidate come close to winning the last cycle.

Some Democrats were particularly bearish – the AlbanyProject, for one, tweeted about their serious doubts as to whether Dems can hold the district. But I think the idea that this seat is in greater danger with Oppenheimer gone is a bit overblown. We’re talking about a district that Barack Obama won with nearly 65% of the vote in 2008. That may prove to be the high-water mark for Democrats in the lower Hudson Valley for some time, but it’s still a profoundly blue district as current drawn. But we know the low-water mark, too: County Executive Andrew Spano lost the 37th 56%-44% in his 2009 re-election bid against Rob Astorino. That’s not too far off from Astorino’s county-wide percentage – the Republican’s victory was not a total shock, but the margin was stunning. Now, as we know all too well, Democratic turnout lags far behind Republican turnout in non-presidential years, and 2012 is a presidential year. Even if Obama is lagging behind his 2008 margins in lower Westchester, it’s hard to imagine him coming anywhere close to losing the district. But is that enough to thwart Cohen’s chances? The New York state senate has proven somewhat resistant to presidential coattail effects, or Democrats would control it by a huge majority. Keep in mind that Obama won 53 of the 62 NY state senate districts in 2008…but Democrats only took 32 senate seats. Andrew Cuomo blew out Carl Paladino the 2010 gubernatorial race, but his party lost more seats than they gained.

A “safe Dem” district in the Senate requires an Obama number approaching 58%-60% in most circumstances, and Senate Republicans were no doubt already hoping to draw the 37th closer to that figure before Oppenheimer announced she would not be a candidate this November.

Is it feasible? Tonight, I attempted to draw a more Republican-friendly 37th using Dave’s Redistricting Application.

Possible 37th District

The result? It’s definitely feasible, but I think Republicans need to be ballsy enough to divide the City of Yonkers three ways to feel good about their chances. I’m not sure that’s even allowed under the state Constitution, as the language is fairly arcane. If it is permissible, then Republicans have a shot at drawing a somewhat-friendly 37th with minimal disruption to the lone currently-Republican district that includes part of Westchester, that of Greg Ball.

By removing heavily-Republican Eastchester from Jeff Klein’s district and placing it into the 37th, it becomes possible to connect the district to eastern Yonkers. This conservative, mostly middle-class section of the city features many of John McCain’s best Westchester precincts from 2008, and it voted reliably Republican enough to keep Nick Spano in the State Senate for almost two decades. By the way, there’s no relation between Nick and the aforementioned Andrew Spano; everyone in Westchester politics on both sides of the aisle is named Spano.

Lower Westchester closeup

The old Spano district, now held by Democrat Andrea Stewart-Cousins, compensates for the land-grab by taking in deep-blue Ossining and New Castle along the district’s northern border. She would still represent a healthy chunk of Yonkers, but the bulk of the district’s population would now be in suburban areas. Klein’s 34th would retain its current borders in the Bronx, Mount Vernon and Pelham, but would take in some heavily Hispanic areas in southern Yonkers. On the whole, his district’s character changes little, which fits the likely approach of Republican redistricters who are unlikely to displace their quasi-allies in the Independent Democratic Conference, of which Klein is the leader.

This new 37th gave Obama 56.8% of the vote, so it represents a roughly 8% improvement for the Republicans. If Cohen’s 2010 strength is ephemeral enough to be bowled over in a presidential year, that won’t be enough. But when one considers how difficult it is for Democrats to win Senate seats outside of the five boroughs, such a map probably creates a swing seat out of this lower Westchester territory. That’s not what Dems are looking for, a week after Republicans confirmed that they will be conjuring up a 63rd district out of thin air in the hopes of preserving their majority.