Of all the competitive Congressional races in 2016, Zephyr Teachout and Denise Juneau’s were the ones I was rooting for most. Both of them lost. I’m going to look at the losses, starting with Zephyr’s.
A note on NY-19. It was redistricted for the 2012 election, and is composed of parts of what used to be NY-20 and NY-22. The district includes Columbia, Delaware, Greene, Otsego, Schoharie, Sullivan, and Ulster counties and parts of, Dutchess, Montgomery, Rensselaer and Broome counties.[15] The old NY-20 was Kristen Gillibrand’s district. Chris Gibson (R) has represented NY-19 for the four years since the redistricting, he is retiring.
The fact that NY-19 includes only parts of some counties is important, since we will look at those in detail below.
NY-19 was an important race with a progressive candidate running on the Democratic ticket. It ended up being one of the 10 most expensive races in the country. Polling was close throughout the campaign, up until the last week where Faso opened up a 6% lead over Zephyr. The final result on election night:
| Candidate | % of vote | raw vote |
|---|---|---|
| Zephyr Teachout (D) | 42.63% | 126,889 |
| John Faso (R) | 51.69% | 153,846 |
| Blank | 5.60% | 16,663 |
| Void / Write-In | 0.08% | 260 |
| total | 297,658 |
I’m going to evaluate the impact that the top of the ticket had on the Congressional race. Most people vote straight party ballots. To test how many voters did this in 2016, we can compare the share of vote received by Clinton and Zephyr for each county:
| Zephyr | Turnout '16 | Zephyr | Clinton | Z - C | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COLUMBIA | 12,235 | 27,725 | 44.13% | 47.33% | -3.20% |
| DELAWARE | 6,172 | 18,072 | 34.15% | 32.23% | 1.92% |
| GREENE | 6,466 | 20,102 | 32.17% | 32.77% | -0.61% |
| OTSEGO | 9,548 | 23,527 | 40.58% | 39.47% | 1.12% |
| SCHOHARIE | 4,253 | 12,904 | 32.96% | 29.27% | 3.69% |
| SULLIVAN | 11,393 | 27,243 | 41.82% | 40.15% | 1.67% |
| ULSTER | 41,160 | 78,832 | 52.21% | 50.75% | 1.46% |
| DUTCHESS (40%) | 22,566 | 51,759 | 43.60% | 46.45% | -2.85% |
| RENSSELAER (50%) | 11,456 | 31,344 | 36.55% | 44.71% | -8.16% |
| MONTGOMERY (28%) | 1,426 | 5,243 | 27.20% | 33.47% | -6.27% |
| BROOME (1%) | 214 | 907 | 23.59% | 44.27% | -20.67% |
2016 election night results are from NY Board of Elections. Turnout figures are total ballots cast.
Column (Z — C) compares the portion of the vote they received. As you can see, Zephyr did better than Hillary Clinton. Zephyr had a 1-4% under-performance in two counties, and a 1-4% over-performance in the five other counties. It’s probably reasonable to assume that 95% of people voted straight party-line ballots.
Dutchess, Rensselaer, Montgomery and Broome are the exceptions. Zephyr underperformed Hillary’s portion of the vote by large margins in these counties. There’s an explanation for this. NY-19 includes only a portion of these counties, and it’s always the less Democratic part. In each case large towns/cities are left out of NY-19:
- The southern part of Dutchess county which includes Poughkeepsie-Montgomery is in NY-18.
- The south-western part of Rensselaer which includes Troy and some Albany suburbs is in NY-20.
- The eastern part of Montgomery county close to Schenectady including Amsterdam is in NY-20.
- NY-19 includes a tiny, rural part of eastern Broome county, Binghamton and it’s suburbs are in NY-22.
NY-20 was drawn to cover Albany and suburbs. NY-18 was drawn to cover some of the northern suburbs and exurbs of NYC. Sean Maloney (D) won re-election in NY-18, and Paul Tonko (D) won re-election in NY 20. Kim Myers (D) lost in NY-22 to Claudia Tenney (R). Tenney will succeed Richard Hanna (R). Incidentally, Hanna retired this year and was the first Republican congressman to say he would vote for Hillary Clinton.
Here is how the Democrats running for Congress performed in the residual (non NY-19) part of the four counties:
| Dem Rep | Turnout '16 | Dem Rep | Hillary | Delta | Rep | District | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DUTCHESS (60%) | 36,438 | 70,682 | 51.55% | 46.45% | 5.10% | Sean Maloney | NY-18 |
| RENSSELAER (50%) | 23,186 | 35,842 | 64.69% | 44.71% | 19.98% | Paul Tonko | NY-20 |
| MONTGOMERY (72%) | 7,306 | 12,568 | 58.13% | 33.47% | 24.66% | Paul Tonko | NY-20 |
| BROOME (99%) | 36,287 | 78,635 | 46.15% | 44.27% | 1.88% | Kim Myers | NY-22 |
In every case, the Democratic Congressional candidate outperformed (in their part of the county) Hillary Clinton’s overall figures in the county. That is because their sections of these counties are more urban/suburban/Democratic than those in NY-19. All said and done, NY-19 leans slightly Republican.
Another way to look at this is to see how the Democratic Congressional candidates did as a whole in each of these counties and compare them to Clinton’s result:
| Non NY-19 Dem Rep | Non NY-19 Turnout | NY-19 | NY-19 Turnout | Clinton | Clinton Turnout | Dem Rep % | Clinton % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DUTCHESS | 36,438 | 70,682 | 22,566 | 51,759 | 56,874 | 122,441 | 48.19% | 46.45% |
| RENSSELAER | 23,186 | 35,842 | 11,456 | 31,344 | 30,039 | 67,186 | 51.56% | 44.71% |
| MONTGOMERY | 7,306 | 12,568 | 1,426 | 5,243 | 5,961 | 17,811 | 49.03% | 33.47% |
| BROOME | 36,287 | 78,635 | 214 | 907 | 35,212 | 79,542 | 45.89% | 44.27% |
For the four counties split between two districts, Hillary Clinton under-performed down-ballot Democratic candidates in each county. It’s reasonable to conclude that Hillary Clinton out-performed Zephyr Teachout in only two counties, Columbia by 3% and Green by less than 1%. In all other counties, Zephyr Teachout outperformed Hillary.
