A forewarning: this post is an “into the weeds” review of political analysis.
New York State has switched the election cycles for most local elections from odd-numbered years, when no statewide or national elections are held, to even-numbered years, when presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and other statewide elections occur that generally produce much larger voter turnout. The change has not been lacking political bickering.
Political dialogue these days is easier to predict than in days gone by. Now for every policy position/commentary there seems to be an equal but opposite response from the other side of the aisle. It is a real-life observation akin to Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion. (Adding a little physics to the blog here.)
So it is with a political development that has mostly flown under the radar – the switch in local election cycles. State Democrats love the idea; Republicans seem to hate it. But the reality is not that simple.
Democrats say that the change improves voter turnout. Who can be against more voters? They hope or expect that that will improve the chances of their candidates winning.
Republican claim that their candidates will be disadvantaged by a larger turnout.
It is often assumed that a higher turnout helps Democrats. Maybe. But an examination of voter turnout in gubernatorial, presidential, and local elections seems to indicate a different possibility.
I looked at turnout in the 28 cities and towns in Erie County for elections in 2022, 2024, and 2025. Here are some observations of note:
Turnouts not surprisingly are significantly greater in the gubernatorial and presidential election years, in most cases doubling or even tripling the total number of votes in the odd-numbered years.
The countywide vote totals for the three years: 2022 – 340,087; 2024 – 453,025; 2025 – 189,518.
The major advantage for Democrats was in who won countywide.
Out of the 28 municipalities, in only six did the candidate who carried the town or city match who won countywide.
The same six (Buffalo, Lackawanna, Amherst, Aurora, Cheektowaga, and the Town of Tonawanda) matched the countywide results in both the gubernatorial and presidential elections, voting for Kathy Hochul in 2022 and Kamala Harris in 2024.
The six municipalities comprise 59 percent of the total voter registration in the county.
In the other 22 municipalities Lee Zeldin and Donald Trump won the vote.
Overall, in the county in 2022 and 2024, Kathy Hochul won the majority by 20,622 votes (53 percent to 47 percent), while Joe Biden won in 2024 by 43,477 votes (55 percent to 45 percent).
I have not reviewed the results in other past election cycles, but it is likely that the same general conclusions would appear.
Elections are decided on many factors, among them being candidates’ personal strengths; their resources, both in money and team support; the registration advantage/disadvantage of the candidate’s party; and external matters dominating current politics. A much larger turnout for a local race may mean that one or both parties’ partisans turned out in relatively the same proportion as what a much smaller turnout might produce. In other words, the local results might be the same regardless of the turnout.
A test of that theory will happen in November when gubernatorial results are compared with local results. With limited exceptions, the November 2025 local results were mostly in favor of Democrats in the six municipalities that went for Hochul and Biden, while Republicans generally won in the other municipalities.
A footnote: elections in cities in New York State remain on the odd-numbered years cycle. Constitutionally created offices such as sheriff also remain on odd-year cycles.
Increased interest in public campaign financing state elections
This year will be the second time that the state’s Public Campaign Financing Program is in operation. Statewide and state legislative candidates are signing up to participate in the Program in much larger numbers than in 2024.
In 2024 a little over two hundred participants were in the Program. So far this year more than 600 candidates have signed up; the deadline for doing so is February 23rd.
The list includes these statewide candidates:
Larry Sharpe, Republican, Governor
Bruce Blakeman, Republican, Governor
Tom DiNapoli, Democrat, Comptroller
Adem Bunkeddko, Democrat, Comptroller
Raj Goyle, Democrat, Comptroller
Drew Warshaw, Democrat, Comptroller
Leticia James, Democrat, Attorney General
Saritha Komatireddy, Republican, Attorney General
Locally, the following state legislative candidates have signed up:
Jon Rivera, Democrat, Senate District 61
Jemery Zellner, Democrat, Senate District 61
Dan Gagliardo, Republican, Senate District 61
April Baskin, Democrat, Senate District 63
Pat Burke, Democrat, Assembly District 142
Gary Dickson, Republican, Assembly District 142
Pat Chludzinski, Republican, Assembly District 143
Ryan Taughrin, Democrat, Assembly District 143
Paul Bologna, Republican, Assembly District 144
Rebecca Wydysh, Republican, Assembly District 145
Adam Bojak, Democrat, Assembly District 149
Alex Burgos, Democrat, Assembly District 149
Kevin Deese, Democrat, Assembly District 149
Karen Hoak, Democrat, Assembly District 149
Holly Park, Assembly District 149
Total spending on public campaign financing will undoubtedly be much higher than the approximately $32 million spent in 2024. That will be increased by many elections with multiple candidates for the same office.
The state Public Campaign Finance Board conducts random lotteries among program participants to determine who gets audited. The audit process has been slow. There have been a couple of investigations by newspapers in Albany and New York City that have exposed scandals.
The motivation for the program is to level the playing field by giving candidates without large campaign treasuries the ability to compete with other candidates, particularly incumbents, with greater resources. It is too early to assess how well this experiment in democracy is working.
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