2009 NYC Mayoral Race by Precinct

[paul718]

Forgive my ignorance of New York politics...why did Southern Brooklyn vote so strongly for Bloomberg?

Those are mostly white, middle to upper middle-class neighborhoods.

Bay Ridge (Norwegian and Irish), Bensonhurst (Italian), Gravesend (Italian), Midwood (Jewish), Borough Park (Jewish), Sheepshead Bay (mixed white), Bath Beach (Italian), Dyker Heights (wealthy), Mill Basin (very wealthy), Brighton Beach (Russian), etc.

[paul718]

Forgive my ignorance of New York politics...why did Southern Brooklyn vote so strongly for Bloomberg?

Those are mostly white, middle to upper middle-class neighborhoods.

Bay Ridge (Norwegian and Irish), Bensonhurst (Italian), Gravesend (Italian), Midwood (Jewish), Borough Park (Jewish), Sheepshead Bay (mixed white), Bath Beach (Italian), Dyker Heights (wealthy), Mill Basin (very wealthy), Brighton Beach (Russian), etc.

Ah, makes sense.

I understand those people are socially more liberal but also like people who are tough on crime and terrorism, no?

I wouldn't call them socially liberal.  There is heavy union influence, though.  Tough on crime/terrorism, yes.

[paul718]

So you're moving to the Lower Eastside.

The Dominican/Puerto Rican part, yes, already there.  I didn't realize that it was a Hispanic island in Manhattan until I went back to this thread and looked at that map.

LES is such a puzzling neighborhood.  When people think if Downtown residents, they think of yuppies or bohemians.  But LES is still very much a working-class area.

When my father's side of the family immigrated, they settled a few blocks away in Alphabet City.

I'm glad to hear you've settled in, Lunar.  Best of luck.

[paul718]

I thought Bay Ridge was packed with Italians. What happened?

It never was.  A token few here and there.  My father grew up in Bay Ridge in the '50s and '60s, and if I recall correctly, he only knew of a few other Italian families.  

That is, however, if you're referring to those who've actually resided there.  

Bay Ridge has always been a huge social spot (restaurants, nightclubs, etc.), and the ginzos only have to walk ten or so blocks down 86th Street to get from Bensonhurst to Bay Ridge.  And people from Staten Island merely have to drive over the Ginny Gangplank to get there.  So, if that's the case, then I guess you could say Bay Ridge is still packed with Italians.

[paul718]

That changed when the Russians and Poles packed into the area, but it's still a largely (like 80%) white area. 

Did you hear that it used to be Italian?  I honestly don't know any Italians from Bay Ridge, other than my father's immediate family (his extended family is from Gravesend).  But, of course, I'm going only on hearsay.  You might've had access to actual data through your political endeavors/obsession. 

But there are Russians everywhere now.  Including my own neighborhood.

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Yup.  Sunset has been Rican as long as I can remember.

[paul718]

Well for what it is worth, here is what Barone says in his 2010 edition of the Almanac when chatting about the 13th CD of NY: "heavily Catholic and Italian Bay Ridge, ... ."  Of course, maybe Barone has become lazy and not updated his text on some of its demographic lacunae for several editions or something, and his comment is now out of date.

By the way, that is what I really like about the Almanac. It is not so much the political data, but Barone's description of the places and neighborhoods, and their evolution, or lack thereof, over time. You really learn about America on the ground in a way that is hard to replicate elsewhere.

Without context, I'm guessing Barone was taking the overall Catholic/Italian prevalence in the CD, and projecting it onto that tiny sliver of Brooklyn. 

Wikipedia sez:

"Bay Ridge is a largely middle class neighborhood. With its strong family presence, it is not uncommon to see third or fourth generation families living in the region. Bay Ridge has a sizable Irish, Italian, Greek and Scandinavian population, but like other areas in South/Southwest Brooklyn, late in the 20th century it saw an influx of Polish and Russian immigrants, and lesser numbers of Chinese."

That's all the data I have hah

And further...

"As of the 2000 U.S. Census, there were 69,840 people living in Bay Ridge. The demographics were 78.2% White, 11.0% Hispanic or Latino, 10.1% Asian, 1.6% African American and 0.2% Native American. Of those, the top 5 ancestries were 16.6% Irish, 16.5% Italian, 10.8% Arab, 5.4% Chinese and 5.4% Greek."

Yeah, I should probably stop lecturing people about the demographics of a place where I don't even live. 

[paul718]

Random, single block anomaly I found:

NY Times interactive map

District 84-30 in the South Bronx gave 156 votes to Ferrer and 35 to Bloomberg in 2005. In 2009, it gave 32 votes to Bloomberg and ... 8 to Thompson. Transcription error? Big Hispanic population that didn't bother to turn out for Thompson? Big racist population?

That's a transcription error (I have the NYC Board of Elections results in front of me).    Thompson got 82 votes there.  Not 8. 

 

[paul718]

Even at 82 it's a fairly large drop in turnout.

Turnout was a 15.3%.  The median for the Bronx in that election was around 19%.  If I'm not mistaken, 25% is considered "normal" turnout for any Election District.  I don't know what that ED's turnout looked like in 2005.