Previously Published in The Messenger
The “tip of the spear” is the apt description for Suffolk County in terms of turning New York red, or at least competitive.
The comparison was imparted to us last year by Suffolk County Republican Committee Chairman Jesse Garcia (R-Ridge), and it couldn’t be truer for next year.
As the largest suburban county in the nation, Suffolk’s population is about 1.5 million. In 2022, 566,073 voters turned out in the gubernatorial election. Then-Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) won Suffolk 58.36% to Kathy Hochul’s (D) 36.52% – a staggering margin required by a Republican barnstorming in an overall blue stronghold.
The margin is even more convincing considering that former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-Sutton Place) won Suffolk in 2018 by a 51.4%-46.3% margin. It was much closer than in 2022, but the total swing accounted for just under a whopping twenty-seven points in Republicans’ favor.
Suffolk also earned distinction by being the largest county – by population – in the nation to back President Donald Trump (R-FL) in all three of his elections – albeit by a razor-thin margin in 2020. Trump’s 2024 total in Suffolk was the best of his three runs.
New York State has 13 million registered voters; Suffolk is home to about 1.1 million. As of the latest rolls, registered Democrats slightly outnumber registered Republicans in Suffolk to the tune of 373,326 voters to 353,340, not counting for Working Families and Conservative alliances, respectively.
Some might be surprised by those totals, given how red Suffolk has become – courtesy of current Suffolk GOP Chairman Jesse Garcia (R-Ridge). It casts light on a massive problem for the Democrats: registered voters are simply no longer identifying with their party. Case in point: in 2024, Kamala Harris (D-CA) earned 341,812 votes in Suffolk, about 30,000 less than are on the rolls. Trump received 417,549 votes, far north of the total registered Republicans.
Unaffiliated registered voters, called Blanks in New York, are the fulcrum upon which elections rest in this state. A third of Suffolk’s voters are Blanks at 339,542, out of about 3.3 million statewide.
Zeldin only trailed Hochul by 377,834 votes statewide. Suffolk alone won’t be responsible for closing the gap, but it raises the floor significantly for the Republican hopeful’s prospects, and that hopeful appears to be Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R, NY-21).
Suffolk will no doubt be ground-zero for this campaign and the next election will be won in the Downstate region. The conventional political wisdom of yesteryear dictated that for a Republican to win in New York, a line essentially had to be drawn around New York City and max out turnout on Long Island and anywhere Upstate, while even picking off a couple of the blue counties.
Now, New York City is as ripe as ever for the picking, with Zeldin and Trump running up historic margins in the four Democratic boroughs, even coming close to 40% in Queens.
But it takes Suffolk to lead the way. The GOP faces tough inroads to make behind Democratic lines, but there’s no shot at flipping the seat without Suffolk.