According to the Buffalo News (Motto: "Bringing you yesterday's news tomorrow"), Democrats, "for the first time in anybody's memory," have a registration edge over Republicans in non-New York City New York state.
"Statewide and upstate numbers tell the story. While Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 2.5 million voters across the state today, they trailed by only about 800,000 when Alfonse M. D’Amato won the statewide Senate election in 1980.
Upstate—the area that excludes New York City, plus Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and Rockland counties—counted 1,332,306 Republicans and 1,034,963 Democrats in 1980. Today upstate Democrats have vaulted ahead—1,524,697 to 1,492,309.
In Erie County [home of Buffalo] in 1980, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 241,427 to 171,656. Today Democrats hold an edge of 294,051 to 160,051."
As political territory (district, county, state, etc.) changes allegiances, voter registration is always the lagging indicator of the partisan shift. Voters who live in an area for many years mature and change their political outlook and change their voting habits accordingly. Many do not bother to update their voter registration.
This is only the latest piece of data to confirm what's been obvious for sometime. How else could Hillary Clinton win a Senate seat in a state she only visited when giving speeches at the United Nations?
As the tax/job base shrinks in Western and Upstate New York, the citizens grow more and more dependent on government for employment and financial aid. (According to the Census Bureau, Buffalo is the second-poorest large city in the United States.) Are these citizens the ones most likely to listen to a GOP message about limited government? Likely not.
A GOP restoration in New York will likely wait until a Democrat implosion, and maybe not even then.
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