Republicans make significant inroads in NYC suburbs

As a native of Westchester County, New York, I take personal interest in this outstanding bit of news: The Republican Party of New York made significant inroads in New York's two most affluent suburbs: Westchester County and Nassau County.

Westchester County:

My home county hasn't even been marginally Republican since the days of Ronald Reagan and former Senator Alphonse D'Amato in the 1980's. The County Legislature has a 13-4 Democratic advantage and Barack Obama won the county 63%-37% over John McCain in 2008 so the fact that Rob Astorino was able to win isn't enough for me: The fact that he more or less spanked a 4-term incumbent by a 58%-42% margin is jaw-dropping. There is literally a 2-1 Democratic to Republican voter registration and ever since State Senator Nicholas Spano lost his re-election race to former County Legislator Andrea Stewart-Cousins by 18 votes in 2004, there have been only 2 Republicans in the Westchester delegation to Albany out of 13 (Assemblymen and Senators).

Astorino's victory came partially because of his promise to cut taxes that are some of the highest in the country (And as a native, I can tell you there's no way in hell I'm moving to Westchester after I get my Master's because I simply wouldn't be able to afford it) and cut spending in a county whose seen its budget jump from 800 million to 1.8 billion in the last 10 years but I think it came mainly because after 16 years of Spano and not much improvement in quality of life and in the local economy, voters felt it was simply time for someone new. But I can tell you right now, there is literally no in New York who thought that Spano would lose by more than 3 or 4 percentage points (Mike Bloomberg anyone?).

Nassau County:

Nassau used to have one of the most vaunted political machines in the country, I mean it was competitive with Chicago and Boston and even Tammany Hall. But multiple issues of budgetary ineptitude and a tanking economy caused the county with the most registered Republicans in New York to vote for Democrats, and consistently (Before Suozzi's inauguration, the Maxwell School for Public Affairs at Syracuse ranked Nassau County as the worst run county in the country). After Republican Rick Lazio left his Nassau based congressional seat to compete against Hillary Clinton in the 2000 Senate race, Democrat Steve Israel won and still holds the seat. Carolyn Maloney D-NY and Peter King R-NY hold the other congressional seats that represent Nassau in Washington (Democrats have been intensely trying to find a candidate to test the long-time and popular congressman but they feel the right candidate could knock him off). Tom Suozzi's victory in 2001 also saw the election of a Democratic County Legislature and soon after, the Democratic election of a District Attorney.

The Republicans took back the legislature for the first time in 8 years and Suozzi is holding on to a 237 lead (And with 12,000 absentee ballots that still need to be counted, there is a very good chance that Suozzi's career is over, a view echoed by many in New York). The results here aren't as surprising as they are for Westchester, but they are surprising nonetheless. Nassau is still a marginally Republican County who grew into a habit of electing Democrats. Even Barack Obama with the record levels of enthusiasm that he was able to marshal (and Nassau has a sizable minority population) was only able to squeak out a 53%-46% victory over McCain. The interesting thing here, is that the Republicans didn't campaign on some grandiose issue or set of promises. Suozzi, was simply one of many incumbents who suffered from anti-incumbent fever.

At the federal level this doesn't mean much but these results could have state-wide ramifications when considering the fact that the State Senate is divided 31-29 in favor of Democrats and both counties have Democratic Senate seats that Republicans intend on targeting.