Within the Margin

From time to time we like to take things local here at WTM, and on Election Night I promised to elaborate further on the scope of just what had happened in my home county. I don’t toss around words like “historic” without thought; I have a graduate degree in the field and a deep awareness of the transient nature of electoral success. But as election results came in, it became clear that Democrats in Dutchess County were experiencing something akin to their best-case scenario for the evening. In doing so, the party surpassed all of its previous high-water marks, which are ranked below. But first, let’s examine what happened, starting at the top.

President. Barack Obama carried Dutchess County again. His margin was slightly reduced from 2008, but the erosion was not as much as he experienced nationally (-1.24% versus -2.14%, both numbers being subject to minor revision pending final tallies) and was still enough for a comfortable 6.6% margin of victory in the county As much as Democrats struggled here in 2009 and 2010, causing doubts as to whether Obama could again carry Dutchess, he ended up performing pretty decently here. This is the fourth time that a Democratic presidential candidate won this county – the others being Johnson ’64, Clinton ’96, and Obama ’08.

Senate. As expected, Kirsten Gillibrand obliterated her woeful, extremist opponent statewide and carried Dutchess by a 2:1 margin.

House of Representatives. Dutchess is divided between two Congressional districts. Republican freshman Chris Gibson represents northern and eastern Dutchess and carried the county en route to reelection. Fellow GOP first-termer Nan Hayworth represents southwestern Dutchess and was not so successful: she was defeated decisively by Democratic Sean Maloney in Dutchess and more narrowly district-wide. Maloney becomes the third Democrat to represent Southern Dutchess in Congress, following John Dow in the ’60s and John Hall, who won in 2006 and 2008.

State Assembly. The new Assembly map divides Dutchess into four Assembly districts. The 103rd includes only Rhinebeck and Red Hook and is otherwise an Ulster County district; here, incumbent Democrat Kevin Cahill was unopposed for reelection.

The 104th district includes Poughkeepsie, Beacon and sections of Orange and Ulster. This was won narrowly by Frank Skartados in 2008 over 14-year incumbent Tom Kirwan. The latter would be back to win an even closer rematch in 2010, but he passed away before completing his final term, prompting a March 2012 special election. Skartados won that easily, and crushed his opponent in the general. This seat, safely Republican for so long and marginal recently, has officially become a safely Democratic seat.

The 105 and 106th districts are effectively new entities, drawn out of the old 102nd and 103rd. Democrat Didi Barrett’s special election victory in the old 103rd in March made her the first Democrat ever to hold that seat, now effectively the 106th. In her quest for a full term, Barrett faced new territory and a legitimate challenger in West Point graduate and Milan councilman David Byrne. The Republican had won an Opportunity to Ballot campaign to snag the Independence Line from Barrett in September and the Barrett campaign was taking nothing for granted, even in a district slightly more Democratic than the one in which she triumphed in March. She ended up winning by the almost-comfortable margin of 55%-45% – a remarkable feat in territory so unaccustomed to sending Dems to Albany.

The 105th includes all of Dutchess County’s most Republican towns; it did what southern Dutchess does and elected Republican Kieran Lalor to an open seat by a 56-44 margin. That loss for Dems should not detract from the totality of what they did. In 2010, Dutchess was divided between five districts; only one (featuring exactly one Dutchess town) elected a Democratic Assemblyman. In 2012, three of the county’s four districts elected Dems, and did so by healthy margins.

State Senate. This might have been the biggest win of them all. No Democrat had been elected to the State Senate from Dutchess County since young legislator Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a pair of elections in 1912 and 1914. Roosevelt would fade into obscurity, and Democrats rarely even came close to winning the seat again. Even in the great years of 2006 and 2008, the mighty Steve Saland was just too powerful. But his vote for marriage equality invited a Republican primary challenger who nearly defeated him in September; the same man fought on via the Conservative line in the general election. And ready to twist the knife was Terry Gipson, the Rhinebeck village trustee who spent two full years campaigning for this seat, starting as an underfunded longshot and ultimately ending as the 41st district’s next state senator. In dethroning one of the giants of Dutchess Republicanism, Gipson demonstrated the importance of starting early and sticking with it.

Two Dutchess towns (Beekman and Pawling) remain in the 40th district; they voted heavily for Republican incumbent Greg Ball, who won a second term as his Putnam and Dutchess victories outweighed a narrow Westchester defeat.

State Supreme Court. Dutchess forms part of the 9th Judicial District along with Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester. It’s friendly enough turf for Dems, but Dutchess rarely gets represented in the Democratic nominations since Westchester has the highest population, is the most Democratic, and likes to call the shots. But his year, Maria Rosa of Millbrook was one of the Democrats running for three seats on the court, and emerged victorious to become the first Dutchess Democrat elected to the 9th since 1964.

County Legislature. County elections occur in odd-numbered years, but the appointment of incumbent Republican Gary Cooper to a county administrative post necessitated a special election in the 19th district of northeastern Dutchess. Milan’s Debra Blalock mounted a spirited campaign against appointed replacement David Sherman of North East; she was the underdog but fought to a 17-vote lead on Election Night. That’s close enough that it theoretically could have flipped via absentees, but it has not: Blalock’s lead has increased to 71 votes during the counting of absentee ballots. Blalock thus becomes the first Democratic county legislator in history from her district.

Town Races. Several special elections were held to fill unexpired terms for supervisor, justice and town board in different towns. These were all in places Republicans historically win with ease. But in one of them, young Democrat Tim Tuttle bounced back from a 2011 loss to become the first Democrat on the Fishkill town board in half a century.

So let’s summarize. Dutchess Democrats carried the county for the president and U.S. Senate, picked up long-held GOP seats on the Fishkill Town Board, Dutchess County Legislature, and New York State Senate, retook a Congressional seat, held two Assembly seats that had GOP incumbents this time last year, and elected a fresh, local face to the State Supreme Court. It was more than anyone could have realistically hoped for coming in, and it’s an indication that the party’s relatively new (and smallish) registration advantage is starting to translate into victories up and down the ballot. There will still be challenges: this year was partially enabled by Obama’s presence atop the ticket. Republicans around the country are vastly better than Democrats at turning out their voters in local years, and Dutchess is no different in this respect. But with each win, candidate recruitment gets a little bit easier. And as recruiting improves, more wins occur and the cycle begins anew. The candidates and party leaders who made these wins possible should congratulate themselves not only for what they did this year, but for what this year potentially means going forward in making Dutchess a truly competitive two-party county.

The rest of the top five Democratic years in Dutchess County history? We can debate the order, but here’s how I’d rank ’em:

2. 2008
This was the year Democrats passed Republicans in the number of voters registered in Dutchess County, auguring a strong year for the party. Barack Obama was the first Democrat to carry Dutchess in the presidential race since Clinton in ’96 and he blew past Clinton’s 45.6% to win just under 54% in Dutchess. That aided easy wins for each of the county’s incumbent members of Congress, plus several local pickups. In the 100th Assembly district (Poughkeepsie/Beacon/Newburgh and suburbs in Orange and Ulster), Frank Skartados eked out a win over longtime incumbent Tom Kirwan. Joan Posner won a historic victory to take a seat on the county’s Family Court, the first Democratic female to do so in the county’s history. Robert McKeon won a special election to give Democrats the majority on the Red Hook town board. Joanna Shafer won a special town board race in Stanford.

Legitimate disappointments were few. Jonathan Smith’s Assembly campaign against Joel Miller gained traction but didn’t end up quite as close as I thought it would. Anne Rubin’s guerilla campaign against Marc Molinaro will always hold a special place in many of our hearts, though. And…Lumies Huff, anybody? Go Crimson.

3. 1964

In ’64, Lyndon Johnson became the first Democratic presidential candidate in the 20th century to carry Dutchess County – he would be the last to do so until Bill Clinton did so in 1996 with an assist from Ross Perot. As many locals have no doubt heard, even Franklin Delano Roosevelt never carried his home county even while winning nationwide with ease on four occasions. Johnson’s 63%-37% victory was similar to his national margin of victory; he obliterated Republican nominee Barry Goldwater everywhere but the Deep South. That created a coattail affect across the country, and in Dutchess County it was enough to secure victories in Congressional seats that Democrats had not won for a century. The then-27th district, including southern Dutchess, southern Sullivan, Orange, Putnam and part of Rockland, elected John Dow. He would be a liberal’s liberal in Congress, one of the first members to oppose the Vietnam War. Where many of those elected in the Johnson landslide were swept out two years later in a very strong year for Republicans, Dow survived the ’66 election but lost to Martin McKneally, a Nixon law-and-order man, in 1968. McKneally turned out to be a words-not-deeds law n’ order guy, however, and lost a rematch in 1970 amidst revelations that he was a tax evader. Dow’s tenure in Congress finally ended in 1972 when moderate Republican Ben Gilman defeated him and installed a deathgrip on the seat, which eventually became a Rockland/Orange/Westchester seat. The northern Dutchess seat stretched north to Columbia County and west through and beyond the Catskills; it elected Joseph Resnick in 1964. Unlike Dow, Resnick was a strong defender of Johnson’s war policy and cut a more moderate figure on Capitol Hill. He too was reelected in 1966 despite the Republican tide, but gave up his seat in ’68 to run for the Senate (he lost the primay). Resnick was replaced by Hamilton Fish III, who held the seat as it becamse a southern Dutchess/Putnam/Westchester seat.

The other local Democratic wins in 1964 included a Dutchess judge’s election to the state Supreme Court as well as Victor Waryas, who captured an Assembly seat he would hold until 1968 (safe to say ’68 was not a banner year for Dutchess Dems). Locals will recognize the Waryas name from the park on the Poughkeepsie waterfront from which Joe Bertolozzi’s Bridge Music is broadcast in perpetuity.

The Johnson landslide created many wins in terms of quantity, but these proved relatively fleeting. While Obama’s coattails certainly helped this year, Johnson in ’64 was winning by such a large margin that he couldn’t help but bring others into office with him. The test of 2012 will be whether those folks last longer than the local class of ’64.

4. 2007

After four consecutive blowout wins, Republican County Executive Bill Steinhaus finally had a real fight on his hands. Democrats nominated Wappinger Town Supervisor Joe Ruggiero, who amassed a significant warchest previously unseen in local Democratic circles. He fell short by just 2,064 votes, or 3.3%. But with a viable top of the ticket, Democrats won control of the Dutchess County legislature for the first time since 1979. They also won control of the Dover town board, the Beacon mayoralty, and netted gains on the Poughkeepsie city council and East Fishkill, Pawling and Red Hook town boards.

It wasn’t a flawless year for Democrats, however. In addition to Ruggiero falling just short, the incoming legislative majority could have been larger had two Democratic incumbents not lost their seats. Republicans gained control of the Milan and Rhinebeck town boards and captured the mayoralty in Poughkeepsie. They would strike back with a vengeance in 2009 to retake the legislature.

 5. 1977

Yeah, the history of good Democratic years in Dutchess County starts to thin out pretty quickly. 1977 is probably the best contender because it’s the other year – besides 2007 – that Democrats won a county legislature majority, in addition to a decent year at the town and city level. ’77 is particularly important to the county’s political history because of what would transpire in the following months: Republican County Executive Ed Schuler would be indicted and convicted of bribery, leading to his resignation in early 1978. The legislature was empowered to appoint a new executive to serve out Schuler’s term; with the legislature now under Democratic control, it chose Majority Leader Lucille Pattison of Hyde Park to step into the executive’s role. She thus became the only Democratic and only female county exec in Dutchess history and was elected to full terms in 1979, 1983 and 1987.

Honorable Mention: 2005

Dems picked up four seats in the county legislature and were a hair’s breadth from capturing the majority, positioning them to do so in 2007. Diane Jablonski was elected county comptroller – the first Democrat in decades to win that office.  In the Town of Wappinger, Democrats won the supervisor and clerk races as well as maintaining a town board majority.  In Hyde Park, Democrats captured the supervisor seat and the town board majority. Bill Dahncke became the first Democrat elected to the East Fishkill town board since former Town Supervisor Dominick Cannizzaro left office. Dems also held a rare town board seat in Beekman; few incumbent Democrats were defeated anywhere in the county.