Columbia County, New York

[Torie]

Well, let's see. Columbia County is where my aged butt is sitting at the moment as I pound the keyboard. Yes, the county is trending Dem as the cosmopolitan white gentry continues to move in, now at a faster pace due to covid, and now also more often than heretofore as their principal residence, rather than a second home. But what turbocharged it all this year is that the local Dems mailed an absentee ballot application to every registered Democrat in the county. So I got my application, filled it out, got a ballot in the mail, filled that out straight Dem like a mindless robot, and mailed that back in, and then made sure that it had been logged in via an online utility. Those absentee ballots were maybe 90% Dem, and the turnout % in the County ratcheted up in rather spectacular fashion, and it was almost all more Democrats voting. I am not sure many other NY counties did what the Columbia County Dems did by doing a mass mailing to all its registrants, so I suspect that it the biggest factor in and of itself as to the magnitude of the Dem trend this year as compared to its neighboring counties.

Oh, the Dems have been pushing second homeowners hard from NYC to vote from their vacation home, with considerable success, since before I moved in 6.5 years ago. The one big impediment is for those who have a rent controlled apartment in the city, since where you are registered to vote is a factor in whether you are entitled to rent control. So I don't think the trend is due to that factor because it is not a new factor.