BOE Breakouts color one Tompkins town red; Absentees affirm Enfield local laws
by Robert Lynch; November 19, 2024
As you radiate outward from the deepest dark-blue bastions of Ithaca, the Tompkins County political hue turns increasingly crimson, newly-released elections figures now confirm.
No, the western border Town of Enfield didn’t go for President-Elect Trump or for Congressman Marc Molinaro. But in our county’s northeastern corner, the Town of Groton did go there—and voted for Trump big time.
District-by-district breakouts, released November 15th by the Tompkins County Board of Elections reveal that the former and future President carried Groton with 53.4 per cent of the vote. Vice President Kamala Harris earned only 44.6 per cent support. That’s an 8.8 percentage point spread. Grotonites gave Trump 1,518 votes, and Harris 1,269 votes. Thirty-eight people wrote in someone else’s name for President.
Groton was the only Tompkins County town where Trump voters outnumbered those for Harris.
Likewise, in New York’s 19th District race for Congress, Groton became the Republican outlier in Tompkins County. Groton gave Republican incumbent Marc Molinaro 1,479 votes (54.4 per cent of those expressing a preference), to Democrat Josh Riley’s 1,241 votes (45.6 per cent). Riley won the election overall.
No other Tompkins County town went for Molinaro. Groton also became the only town in the county whose voters backed the relatively unknown Republican, Michael Sapraicone, over Democrat incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand for U.S. Senator.
Enfield, though rural like Groton, voted more in the Democrats’ favor. The Board of Elections’ final breakout showed 1,047 Enfield voters (57.7 percent) supporting Vice President Harris, 742 voters (40.9 per cent) backing former President Trump. Twenty Enfield voters wrote-in another name.
While Friday’s released results still carry the label “unofficial,” those tallies—which for the first time include absentee ballots legally received and counted after Election Day—are not expected to change.
The final data also confirmed the passage of Enfield’s three ballot referenda, those that will elongate future terms for Town Supervisor, Town Clerk, and Highway Superintendent from two years to four. The change will kick-in with Town elections taking place in 2025.
Earlier, when same-day voting, early-voting and early-received absentee ballots were released in summary form Election Night, the only Enfield referendum that remained in doubt was that for the Supervisor’s office. Election Night data showed the longer term for Supervisor leading by just 26 votes. At that time, 94 absentee or affidavit ballots remained to be received and/or analyzed and counted..
As it turned out, the updated tally actually widened the margin a bit for the Supervisor’s term of office. The margin of 26 votes expanded to 32. The final tally showed 837 Enfield voters (51%) supporting the Supervisor’s term extension, and 805 (49% ) opposing it.
Of the three ballot referenda, each of them submitted to the electorate by a majority of the Enfield Town Board last July, extending the Town Clerk’s term to four years garnered the greatest support; 948 votes (57.5%) to 701 (42.5%). Extending the Highway Superintendent’s term to four years won, 903 votes (54.5%) to 754 (45.5%).
This year’s referenda results proved different from those of just three years ago. In 2021, Enfield voters rejected extending the terms for each of the offices. (This writer/Councilperson, Robert Lynch, had opposed the referenda’s resubmission this year.)
In the races for Congress in the 19th District and for State Senate in the Ithaca-to-Binghamton 52nd District, Tompkins County’s voters became the engine that powered Democrats to victory. Clearly, Congressman-Elect Josh Riley and Senate incumbent Lea Webb couldn’t have won without the vigorous kick-start that Tompkins’ Democrats provided.
“In this district, in this moment, in this election—we came together to reject the politics of fear and division and lies, the old, tired political playbook of dividing people up and pitting them against each other, the politics of tearing people down just so the political establishment and the special interests can enrich themselves at the expense of the working class,” Josh Riley said in his victory statement election night. “We rejected that.”
Incumbent Molinaro took several more days before he threw in the towel.
“Our race didn’t go the way we had hoped,” Molinaro stated in a three-minute video concession on X, delivered November 12th. He conceded only after the final count of absentee votes had confirmed his narrow loss.
“But let me tell you this,” Molinaro stated that night, “I am so proud of what we built together. This campaign was more than just about winning a seat. It was about standing up for the people who make this state great; who work hard, who love their families, who believe in the promise of New York and America.”
“I’ve always been proud of where I came from, and representing New York’s 19th Congressional District for the past two years has been the honor of a lifetime,” Molinaro concluded his message.
But remember those exact words. Congressman Molinaro comes from Dutchess County, now within the 19th District. Even before his concession, media reports had indicated that Molinaro was kicking political tires, evaluating his prospects in Elise Stefanik’s 21st District, a district in which he does not live.
Republican Stefanik won her election November fifth. But then she was tapped by President-Elect Trump to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. If confirmed in January by the new Congress, Stefanik would need to resign her House seat. That would open the door to a special election. Political committees, not the voters, would pick the party nominees. No law prohibits a candidate from competing outside his home turf.
“I am not done providing public service to the people of the state of New York, and quite frankly, considering what options might be available to me moving forward,” Molinaro told a Spectrum News broadcast November 12th. Our own district’s defeated outgoing Congressman is but one of several Republicans eyeing the Stefanik vacancy in hers, a GOP-dominated North Country district.
Enfield, like Tompkins County, backed Josh Riley in his successful bid to unseat Congressman Molinaro. Final tallies showed 1,027 Enfield voters (59.4% of those stating a preference) supporting Riley, 701 voters (40.6%) backing Molinaro.
Marc Molinaro’s district-wide loss was relatively narrow, which is why he declined to concede until all the votes were counted. The New York State Board of Elections reports that Josh Riley won by just 6,303 votes district-wide, amid more than 367,000 ballots cast. Riley secured 186,944 (50.9%) of those votes, Molinaro 180,641 (49.1%).
Tompkins was among only four counties in the 19th’s 11-county district to give Josh Riley the edge. And Riley’s victory margin in Tompkins County was by far the largest. In Tompkins, Riley secured nearly three votes for every one given to Molinaro. The Tompkins results gave Riley 31,958 votes (74.3%), and Molinaro 11,043 (25.7%).
Mike Sigler put up a fight for State Senate, hoping to defeat Democratic incumbent Lea Webb. He didn’t. In fact, even though the Lansing legislator lives locally, Sigler won neither his home county nor even his home township.
In Lansing, Sigler polled 2,263 votes (36.9%) to Lea Webb’s 3,878 (63.1%). Sigler lost Enfield, 695 votes (40.9%) to Webb’s 1,006 (59.1%). In Tompkins County, Webb earned nearly seven out of ten votes cast; 30,891 (69.9%) to Sigler’s 11,820 (26.7%).
District-wide, Lea Webb won with 57.4 per cent support among those who decided between the two candidates; Sigler got 42.6 per cent support. Within the 52nd District’s two other counties, Webb won her home county of Broome just barely, prevailing by only about three percentage points. Sigler won in Cortland County by more than seven percentage points.
“I am so deeply grateful for everything you gave to this movement,” Webb stated in an email message to her supporters November 19. “Your hard work, your dedication, and your belief in the idea that real change starts with real people are what carried us to this moment,” she said.
“I set out on this journey two years ago for this office for a very specific purpose, and that is to empower the voices and lift up the voices of working families in our community, through policy, through investments, through practices,” Webb told WSKG following her victory Election Night.
“Congratulations to Lea Webb,” Sigler said in conceding. “I wish her all the best in her next term, but it is my sincere hope that she will give serious consideration to the issues we raised during the campaign,” the Lansing county legislator added. “There is clearly a huge swath of her constituents who would like to see different priorities out of Albany.”
In the contest for New York State Assembly, Democrat Anna Kelles won handily. She stood unopposed on the November ballot, and a last-minute write-in challenge by Ithaca real estate agent Lindsay Lustick Garner failed to gain significant traction, either in Tompkins County, Enfield or elsewhere.
Enfield, like Tompkins County and New York as a whole, supported Proposition One, New York’s constitutional amendment supporting abortion and other human rights.
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One footnote: Enfield has three election districts. And the results suggest that the center district, District 1, where Enfield Center lies, leans more conservative than does either district lying next to it; either the one north from Mecklenburg Road’s Centerline to the Ulysses border (Dist. 2), or the one south of Enfield Center, Bostwick, and Harvey Hill Roads, extending to the edge of Newfield (Dist. 3).
Case in point: In the race for President, District One saw Kamala Harris win by only nine votes, 284 to 275. Northern Enfield (Dist. 2) went for Harris 64.8% to 33.6%. District Three supported the Vice President with 57.6 per cent of its total, a 100-vote Harris advantage.
Within our own town, differences lie, perhaps. But they’re differences never so much as in Groton. Groton has proven itself different.
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