Sunset Parkers Preferred Clinton And Trump, Show Presidential Primary Votes
Tuesday’s presidential primaries went pretty much as expected. Party frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — who polls predicted to win by wide margins — walked away from New York increasing their delegate lead.
However, the primary’s aftermath reveals interesting details about the political hue of the city’s neighborhoods. Election results collected by WNYC reveal that Sunset Parkers showed solid support among Democrats for Clinton, but that Sanders supporters gave her voters a run for their money.
Voters both west of Fifth Avenue — dubbed “Sunset Park West” for some reason — and east of there — between Fifth and Eighth Avenues — came out 52.1 percent in favor of Clinton and 47.9 percent in favor of Sanders.
On the Republican side, Sunset Park as a whole came in for Trump — 61.3 percent and 54.9 percent for “West” and “East” voting for him, over a second-place Cruz and third-place Kasich race.
Among our neighbors, Borough Parkers preferred Clinton and Cruz, Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights preferred Sanders and Trump, and Park Slope went for Clinton and Trump.
To dive even deeper into the primary, check out the New York Times’ detailed analysis breaking down the election results block by block. The Times’ map shows a pretty lopsided battle in the Republican primary, where Trump won handily in almost every precinct. However, on the Democratic side, the fight for delegates raged on almost every block.
The battle for Brooklyn has also come under scrutiny after it was revealed that 125,000 of the borough’s voters had been purged from the system ahead of election day. The error came to light after WNYC reported 60,000 Brooklyn Democrats mysteriously disappeared from voter rolls. The Board of Elections later announced the number was much higher.
The purge was unique to Brooklyn. As WNYC reported:
No other borough in New York City nor county in the rest of the state saw such a significant decline in active registered Democrats. In fact, only 7 of the state’s 62 counties saw a drop in the number of Democrats. Everywhere else saw the numbers increase.
Several elected officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, responded to the irregulars by calling for voting reforms and supporting an audit by Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office of the Board of Elections.
“There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people who were inexplicably purged from the polls, told to vote at the wrong location or unable to get in to their polling site,” Stringer said in a statement.
With reporting by Alex Ellefson.
