What the North Country GOP's strong showing Tuesday may mean for 2020
Tuesday's election didn't have marquee races here in the North Country. It was mostly a day of local votes across the region. But taken together...
Nov 07, 2019 — Tuesday's election didn't have marquee races here in the North Country. It was mostly a day of local votes across the region. But taken together it was a strong night for the Republican Party, which flipped Clinton County's legislature from Democratic Party control.
The GOP also swept a regional race for state Supreme Court justice seats.
So what does this all mean as we pivot toward the much bigger 2020 election and the 21st district House race? Brian Mann joins Todd Moe to talk about the results.
Todd Moe: So let's start with the big picture - what tells us the GOP had a good night?
Brian Mann: Really, I think it was made up of a lot of little stuff. Democrats ran some really strong candidates in parts of the North Country - Julie Garcie in that Supreme Court justice race, Derek Doty, a Democrat in the North Elba town supervisor race, Paul Roalsvig, a Democrat in the Hamilton County District Attorney Race. And then Sara Idleman, the incumbent town supervisor in Greenwich in Washington County, a Democrat. All of those candidates lost to Republicans; they were swept aside. And that, along with the Clinton County shift, taken together it shows real strength for the GOP.
Todd: And this comes in a year that was a mini-blue wave for Democrats nationally, with strong showings in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Why did we look so different?
Brian: I think there are a couple of factors that may contribute. First, the North Country is just really rural, really white, really blue collar and also quite a bit older than the country as a whole. And those are all demographic groups that right now tilt strongly Republican. Nationally, President Donald Trump is pretty unpopular, but among these demographics that I just mentioned, he's incredibly popular, really beloved by many people. Most Democratic Party successes have been happening in the suburbs and the North Country just isn't a region known for big suburbs.
There is another thing that I think is worth mentioning here and that is the weakness of the Democratic Party structure in much of the North Country. The Republican Party is just more of an actual party in many of the most rural areas, with a strong ability to turn out the vote and get people mobilized. And in those same areas, Democrats just don't have that kind of presence. They don't have local trust that they've built up over time. I think that really probably mattered in some of these races. In particular, I'm thinking about Hamilton County. In that race Republicans ran a controversial candidate in Chris Shambo, a guy who had posted offensive stuff on social media; he was accused by police just last year of "domestic assault," a case that was later dropped. The Democrat in that race, Paul Roalsvig, came within about 200 votes. If Hamilton County had a stronger Democratic Party machine that might have made the difference there. But that was not the case. So in all of these races the Democrats just don't have that foundation to work.
Todd: So as we look to next year's big House race, what does this all say about that race between Congresswoman Elise Stefanik facing another challenge from Democrat Tedra Cobb?
Brian: This is interesting, I think. Elise Stefanik wasn't on the ballot Tuesday, but this was still a great night for her. Remember she won by 14 points in 2018 - a pretty sizable victory - and this election showed that there is no huge shift in how the North Country is thinking about politics. No big anti-Trump wave, no sign that the Republican Party's brand has been damaged by all the controversy in Washington. If anything, it may actually be getting harder for Democrats to compete in some of our most rural areas. Obviously, a lot can change between now and Election Day 2020; there are 12 months to go. But if you were a Democrat looking for a sign that the 21st House district is really in play, really shifting and tilting away from the GOP in the way dozens of House districts have done across the country in the last three years — we just didn't see that Tuesday night.
