Many county voters will have a choice of candidates when they cast their ballots for the Onondaga County Legislature races this November.

The choices come from a growing trend of competition between Republicans and Democrats in the county. Jeff Stonecash is a political science professor at Syracuse University who specializes in local politics.  Stonecash says the competition shows that candidates are finally catching on to shifts in voter registration in the county.

“For years the Republican county legislators used to just sort of skate to a victory without any problem. And now a lot of people are catching up with what’s happened to party enrollment, and they’re saying ‘Hey I’ve got a shot. There are people here who, if they vote their party line, their party registration, I can win.’”

(Jeff Stonecash, political science professor at Syracuse University)  

Every two years, all 19 county legislature seats are up for election. This fall, 12 seats are contested. That’s not a record. The record was set in the 2007 election, when 17 seats had challengers. And the competitive trend favors Democrats for the county legislature.

Consider these numbers and political history:

• Since 2001, when the county was redistricted, Onondaga County has been a Republican stronghold. Ever since 2001, the GOP has held at least 11 of the 19 seats.
• And few Democrats had the political nerve to challenge them. For example, only four Democrats challenged for seats in 2001 and 2003.
• But starting in 2005, the political ground began to shift: More and more Democrats began challenging Republican incumbents or running for open seats.
• And in 2007, the Democrats gained two seats in the county legislature and deprived the Republicans of their two-thirds majority.

The reason for those Democratic victories: More voters registering as Democrats.

A few more numbers to consider:

• Back in 2001, Democratic voters were a distinct minority — only 92,000 registered as Democrats then, compared to 105,000 registered Republicans.

• Today, Democratic voters are the majority — they number 109,000 to 95,000 for Republicans.

Professor Stonecash of SU says this is because more people are simply switching parties.  

“There isn’t enough population mobility or movement into this county for there to be this big influx of Democrats moving in. It’s got to be that a lot of people are crossing over and saying ‘I’m fundamentally changing my party enrollment.’”  

(Jeff Stonecash, political science professor at Syracuse University)

The county Republican Party did not respond to requests for interviews for this story.

 Diane Dwire is the chairwoman of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee and says more competition among local Democrats and Republicans is a spinoff of national politics.

“When they see that more Democrats are winning at the federal level, at the state level, it gives people a little bit more incentive or maybe ‘I can run for office and I can win and I can make a difference.’” (Diane Dwire, chairwoman of the Onondaga County Democratic Committee)

For more information on all the County Legislature races, visit the Democracywise Web site at Democracywise.syr.edu.  

The election is November 3^rd.  

For Democracywise, I’m Chris Shepherd.

(Chris Shepherd is a senior majoring in broadcast journalism with a minor in psychology.)

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