The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The 29th is an interesting district because almost half of its population is concentrated in parts of two counties: suburban Monroe and Ontario.  These counties have 44% of the population over 16, yet 65% of the households with income over $75,000 are situated here.  Only 20% of the families below the poverty level in the 29th live in these counties.

In other words, the northern suburbs are big and relatively wealthy.  They're also new to the 29th, since they were part of the 28th (Monroe) and 30th (Ontario) until the 2002 redistricting.   Pollsters sometimes call 'burbs like these "Volvo-donut" areas.  The "donut" refers to the ring of population around an urban area.  The "Volvo" refers to the affluent liberals who populate these areas.

Conventional wisdom on the 29th's donut is that it is more of a SUV-donut than a Volvo-donut.  Nevertheless, 54% of Sam Barend's votes in the 2004 race came from these two counties, and  Monroe was the only county that she carried in 2004.

So, the challenge of the donut for both candidates is clear.  Massa must turn out the 'burbs like it's a presidential election year if he's to win, and he needs to change a few hearts and minds.  Kuhl needs to keep his base intact, including the conservatives who voted for Assini in '04 (8.8% in Monroe and Ontario).

If you're a Kuhl supporter, you can simply point out that Kuhl would have carried even "liberal" Monroe if he had all of Assini's votes and half of the votes of the Independence party candidate.  There's no real race here, because the Conservative vote will make up for any weakness in the Republican votes.

Massa supporters have to look a little deeper to see the basis for a win.  Massa needs to pick up something like 10-20% of the voters in this area to win (I'll post the numbers on this later -- they're interesting).  To do this, he needs to change minds.  The 29th's suburbs are where the changeable minds live:

• Residents of Monroe and Ontario counties are more likely to come from another state, and more likely to have moved in the last 5 years, than the average resident of the 29th. In other words, they're comfortable making choices that are based on what's best for them, rather than loyalty or habit, and they've shown an ability to make changes in their lives. 
  (Note, too, that Kuhl's pride at being a life-long resident of the 29th is of little interest to constituents who aren't life-long residents themselves.)
• The suburban voters are better-educated than the average in the 29th.  Better-educated often means better-informed.  Since the last two years haven't gone well for Republicans, the better-informed suburbanite is more likely to vote for change.

A final factor in the Massa supporter's case is Kuhl's difficulty in localizing the race in the 'burbs. Kuhl's latest ad points to all of the money he's "brought home" to the district, which is part of an overall effort to make the race about local, not national, issues.  The money Kuhl's counting was spent in the Southern part of the 29th.  If you grant the (questionable) notion that Members of Congress "bring home" money, the dollars "brought home" to Monroe County suburbs are from Louise Slaughter, not Randy Kuhl.

In my next post on the Volvo-Donut, I'll look at the numbers, and show how a little change in the suburbs can mean a big change in the election.

---------------
Note:  You can download [pdf] all of the detailed demographic data used for this post.