The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

If you buy the notion that the 29th's suburbs might hold the key to this election, what are the numbers needed to drive change?

My model says 5,5,2 and 1.

If 5% of those who voted for Kuhl stay home in 2006, and 5% of those folks vote for Massa instead of Kuhl, and if those trends are magnified by 2 additional percent in Monroe, and 1 percent in Ontario, then Massa squeaks through.  Without the input of the 'burbs, it's 51/49 Kuhl, all other things equal.

Let's look at those numbers and the assumptions underlying this model.

The first assumption is that Republicans are dissatisfied, and that they'll express their dissatisfaction in two ways:  by voting for Kuhl's opponent, and by staying home.   Is 10% Republican dissatisfaction a reasonable number?  I dunno, but remember that it's 10% of Kuhl's vote in 2004, not 10% of Republicans - some of those '04 Kuhl voters might be Independents or Democrats.

The second assumption is that suburbs are more likely to change, and that change will be 4% more in Monroe, and 2% in Ontario.  Overall, the model assumes that 14% of voters in Monroe, and 12% in Ontario, will either stay home or switch alliance.  Fourteen percent is pretty fickle.  The Ontario number is smaller than Monroe because Ontario includes suburbs (e.g., Victor) and rural communities -- it isn't a "pure" suburban community.

Finally, we need to deal with the '04 third-party candidates.  The model  assumes that the Conservative vote will break 2/3 Kuhl and 1/3 Massa.  This might be a bit controversial, but I think some hard-core conservatives who aren't satisfied with the Bush administration might want to cast a protest vote.   The model also assumes that the Independence party votes will split 50/50:  they're independent, after all.

Now this isn't a "real" model -- it's more like "fun with numbers".  A real model would, at a minimum, drill deeper than the county level, address differential turnout by party registration, and have a lot more knobs to adjust the underlying assumptions.  But I hope this at least captures the basics of one of the more interesting dynamics of this race.

------

Data:  Feel free to download a hardcopy [pdf] of the model, or the model itself in xls (Excel) or ods (Open Document) format.

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.

Cheney's here and gone, and I'd classify the coverage I saw as mixed. On their 11 o'clock news, WHAM, the ABC affiliate, led with a clip from the speech and followed with a short description of the protests.  However, their 6 p.m. news also had a piece on the Massa campaign's picnic in Henrietta.   At 10 p.m., the Fox affiliate began with the demonstrators, including a shot of one of the demonstrators being handcuffed, and ended with some Kuhl info, including a re-airing of his latest ad.  Today's Democrat and Chronicle printed a large front-page picture of Cheney along with a story quoting the reaction of audience members.  A shorter story on the protests was printed inside, along with a couple of pictures.

Cheney's entire speech is online at the WHAM site.   

The local media coverage of the Dick Cheney's three-hour tour continues its negative trend. This morning's paper Democrat and Chronicle balances a small headshot of Cheney on the front page with a larger picture of protests in its lengthy section B coverage. And the local CBS affiliate's story on anti-war protests leads with a link to the Cheney visit.

DragonFlyEye has posted an in-depth interview with Eric Massa.  He asks some good questions, especially about Massa's positions on free trade.  This kind of interview is citizen journalism at its best.