Why is Long Island so Republican?

[Suburbia]

Why is Long Island so Republican?

I know most American suburbs, especially New York suburbs like Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess, Orange have trended Republican in the past few decades, but why is Long Island (both Nassau County and Suffolk County) so Republican?

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/25/nyregion/race-for-nassau-executive-tests-party-shift.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/nyregion/in-nassau-county-a-deluge-of-democrats-threatens-a-gop-stronghold.html

[Hydera]

The large bulk of Long Islander's were whites and offspring of whites and their offspring's offsprings, the whites who left New York City due to the growing non-white population at the time. Blacks during the two waves of migrations then came puerto ricans then Caribbeans then Latinos and then Asians.  Probably make up 60-80% of Long Island's population.  Plus Nassau is 65% white and Suffolk 71.6% .Which means Long Island has a more stronger republican vote than Westchester county for example which only has 57.4% .  

[King of Kensington]

Westchester whites are more college-educated than LI whites, and largely consist of the the stereotypical "liberal elite" demographic.  Long Island has more working class whites, more nouveau riche types, more Orthodox Jews etc. 

Trump really bombed in Westchester, but LI had more of the stereotypical conservative white ex-"New Yawkers" to appeal to in LI. 

[NewYorkExpress]

Nassau actually has consistently voted for Democrats in almost everything above the House of Representatives (except for Peter King, of course)

Suffolk on the other hand is far more Republican both up and down the ballot... they voted for Obama at least once (maybe twice?), but for Trump in 2016, and generally speaking elect more conservative representatives to Congress and to Albany, as two of their three Congressman (Lee Zeldin and Peter King) are Republicans, as are all but one of Suffolk's State Senators and half of Suffolk's State Assemblypeople.

[Hydera]

Westchester whites are more college-educated than LI whites, and largely consist of the the stereotypical "liberal elite" demographic.  Long Island has more working class whites, more nouveau riche types, more Orthodox Jews etc. 

Trump really bombed in Westchester, but LI had more of the stereotypical conservative white ex-"New Yawkers" to appeal to in LI. 

Wow i found another map and its true.

http://personal.tcu.edu/kylewalker/maps/education/#12.42/41.0243/-73.8014


Random portion of westchester that i was careful not to include Connecticut areas.  57% graduated with college degrees.


http://personal.tcu.edu/kylewalker/maps/education/#9.2/40.6982/-72.5948


for Long island its only 36% which is surprising.

[King of Kensington]

From 2016 ACS:

College graduate:

Westchester  47.6%
Nassau  44.9%
Suffolk  34.8%

Advanced degree:

Westchester  23.5%
Nassau  20.1%
Suffolk  15.7%

College graduate, NHW:

Westchester  58.7%
Nassau  49%
Suffolk  38.6%

Advanced degree, NHW:

Westchester  29.8%
Nassau  23%
Suffolk  17.8%

[Brittain33]

Nassau famously had a Republican machine which controlled the county until the 1990s. Not sure its current state.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Nassau famously had a Republican machine which controlled the county until the 1990s. Not sure its current state.

1917-2001 to be precise. Nassau county Irish punished the Democratic party for 84 years for siding with England in WW1.

[Smash255]

I wouldn't say Long Island is so Republican.  Now it is certainly more Republican than Westchester and the differences between college degrees and advanced degrees among whites partially explains the difference. 

Suffolk did vote for Trump, but it was the first time the county voted for a GOP candidate for President since 1992.  Nassau hasn't gone Republican at the Presidential level since 1988

Locally Suffolk has generally been slightly more Democratic than Nassau, though much of that can be attributed to how strong the local GOP machine has been in Nassau.   The Nassau machine though has taken a beating more recently, with the help of some scandals upcoming trials, etc.  Last year Dems took back the Nassau County Exec, County Controller and won the Town of Hempstead Supervisor race which has been GOP for a Century. 

Republicans still did keep hold of the Nassau Legislature (in part due to the gerrymandered district) and the Town of Oyster Bay despite the ongoing scandals there (though it did cost them a State Senate seat in 2016)

[Fuzzy Bear]

I was a member of the Suffolk County Democratic Committee in the 1970s, beginning at age 18, when I was still in High School.  To this day, I may have been the youngest member ever.  (I was appointed to fill a vacancy.) 

Long Island is marginal territory, but its subdivisions are varied.  In Suffolk County, there are ten (10) "towns".  Five of them are on the East End (East Hampton, Southhampton, Riverhead, Shelter Island, and Southold) are as populous as the average size of the other five (5) towns (Brookhaven, Babylon, Islip, Huntington, and Smithtown).  Babylon Town became Democratic in 1987 and has stayed that way, and the Eastern Towns have become Democratic as the glitterati have moved in.  Huntington Town is a swing town and Islip, Smithtown, and Brookhaven (the largest town) have the strongest local Republican establishments; those towns are hard to crack for Democrats.

Nassau County has the Town of Hempstead (which is over 800,000 thousand people), the Town of North Hempstead (liberal and Democratic and wealthy), the town of Oyster Bay (the most Republican part of the county now, and the Cities of Long Beach and Glen Cove (both usually Democratic).  The shift of the Town of Hempstead to the Democrats was the backbreaker for the GOP last year, and this was due to County Executive Ed Mangano being indicted. 

Both Nassau and Suffolk have moved toward the Democrats.  Suffolk has had more of an influx of blacks and Hispanics than Nassau, but Nassau has always been more Jewish than Suffolk (which is heavily Catholic); this is why Nassau has always been more Democratic in NATIONAL politics, even as it was more Republican in LOCAL politics.  The Margiotta Machine (a Republican Machine, and perhaps the last real machine in politics) did not incite Catholic/Jewish rivalry; they incorporated Jews into the local GOP much more so than in Suffolk.  It was the machine that challenged Jacob Javits and elected Al D'Amato to the Senate. 

Back in the day, Long Island's GOP was, for me, the enemy.  But they also built Suburbia in Nassau, and a wonderful way of life that I benefitted from growing up.  They were rather non-ideological; they were the sort that looked at Reagan ideologues as folks who were potential troublemakers.  They were big spenders, and while that bred corruption, it also recognized that a middle-class lifestyle required public investment and public maintenance.  It's a shame that THOSE Republicans and THAT Republican Party seems to have vanished from the scene.

[Smash255]

I was a member of the Suffolk County Democratic Committee in the 1970s, beginning at age 18, when I was still in High School.  To this day, I may have been the youngest member ever.  (I was appointed to fill a vacancy.) 

Long Island is marginal territory, but its subdivisions are varied.  In Suffolk County, there are ten (10) "towns".  Five of them are on the East End (East Hampton, Southhampton, Riverhead, Shelter Island, and Southold) are as populous as the average size of the other five (5) towns (Brookhaven, Babylon, Islip, Huntington, and Smithtown).  Babylon Town became Democratic in 1987 and has stayed that way, and the Eastern Towns have become Democratic as the glitterati have moved in.  Huntington Town is a swing town and Islip, Smithtown, and Brookhaven (the largest town) have the strongest local Republican establishments; those towns are hard to crack for Democrats.

Nassau County has the Town of Hempstead (which is over 800,000 thousand people), the Town of North Hempstead (liberal and Democratic and wealthy), the town of Oyster Bay (the most Republican part of the county now, and the Cities of Long Beach and Glen Cove (both usually Democratic).  The shift of the Town of Hempstead to the Democrats was the backbreaker for the GOP last year, and this was due to County Executive Ed Mangano being indicted. 

Both Nassau and Suffolk have moved toward the Democrats.  Suffolk has had more of an influx of blacks and Hispanics than Nassau, but Nassau has always been more Jewish than Suffolk (which is heavily Catholic); this is why Nassau has always been more Democratic in NATIONAL politics, even as it was more Republican in LOCAL politics.  The Margiotta Machine (a Republican Machine, and perhaps the last real machine in politics) did not incite Catholic/Jewish rivalry; they incorporated Jews into the local GOP much more so than in Suffolk.  It was the machine that challenged Jacob Javits and elected Al D'Amato to the Senate. 

Back in the day, Long Island's GOP was, for me, the enemy.  But they also built Suburbia in Nassau, and a wonderful way of life that I benefitted from growing up.  They were rather non-ideological; they were the sort that looked at Reagan ideologues as folks who were potential troublemakers.  They were big spenders, and while that bred corruption, it also recognized that a middle-class lifestyle required public investment and public maintenance.  It's a shame that THOSE Republicans and THAT Republican Party seems to have vanished from the scene.

Nassau does have a larger African American population than Nassau and is more Asian and Jewish as well.  Suffolk's Hispanic and white population is larger and more WWC.

[Nein Numb]

Now this could be just me but I wonder if New York still has that a bit of the oysterbay-Hyde Park feud?
As in the TR’s and FDR’s still in a way running politics in New York.

[jimrtex]

Nassau actually had manufacturing, such as Grumman and Sikorsky, and it is further from New York City. When Nassau was split off from Queens, Queens was just beginning to develop. It in effect was the suburb of Brooklyn. It has comparatively recently continued to urbanize.

The main reason Bronx has a smaller population than Brooklyn and Queens is that it is smaller.

Westchester:Bronx :: Queens:Brooklyn

Yonkers is at best inner suburb. Meanwhile, the northern parts of Westchester were commuter suburbs of Manhattan, and later corporate headquarters of companies moving out of NYC, such as IBM. If you work at IBM you are going to have a college degree, and your children will as well. The same is true if you are commuting into the financial district. If you were working for Grumman, a degree was not necessary.

[King of Kensington]

Transplants to the New York area I suspect are more liberal than the white locally born, and if they opt for the suburbs they're much more likely to move to Westchester or New Jersey.

[King of Kensington]

Westchester:Bronx :: Queens:Brooklyn

Between 1940 and 1970, Queens and Westchester grew at a a similar rate (53% and 56%, respectively).

[TML]

Long Island Republicans are much more moderate/centrist than Southern Republicans are. If they had been as far right as Trump or other Southern Republicans they would be routinely crushed by Democrats.

Based on my personal observation, it seems that longtime White residents tend to vote Republican, while minorities (Blacks, Hispanics, & Asians) along with younger & more educated Whites tend to vote Democratic. This often reflects in the local precincts' election results - for example, in the 2017 Nassau County Executive election, my local precinct voted 51-48 for Democrat Laura Curran, while the precinct across the street from me voted 57-42 in favor of Republican Jack Martins.

[freepcrusher]

From what I know, Suffolk County has much more of a "prole" reputation while Nassau County is considered more wealthy (think the great gatsby). According to an almanac of american politics in the 1970s - it said that Nassau County's demographics was a good microcosm of what the five boroughs were circa 1930 - one quarter jewish, with the rest being Irish, Italians, WASPs and the occasional nonwhite (especially in places like Roosevelt, where Howard Stern grew up). Suffolk, on the other hand, is disproportionately more Italian and Irish (i.e. guido). Although the hamptons are in suffolk county, its a small fraction of the county.

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

It has a lot of white collar white voters who moved out of the city over decades of white flight, but retained the more blue collar "tough New Yorker" feel. They also have a stronger sense of community than most suburbs and seem to have more pride in where they come from. The flag waving patriotic pander of the GOP appeals to them while failing in most other suburbs. That's my impression, anyway

[Nyvin]

Suffolk County votes "so Republican"  but Nassau really doesn't.

Even Suffolk only votes Republican by less than 10% usually,  Obama won it in 2012.

[Ban my account ffs!]

It's literally a giant turd shooting out of NYC... of course it would be Republican.