Williamsburg's Romney Vote

I finally got the NYC presidential election results broken down into EDs. Here are some conclusions, from the numbers:

Mitt Romney won in the almost exclusive Hasidic Williamsburg poll-sites, on Heyward St., by a landslide 2/1 margin. It's strong, but not as red as some Borough Park districts. Like in Kiryas Joel, The usual conservative leanings of the Orthodox on a national level, was partly off-set by what was seen as the unfair bashing of President Obama by pro-Zionist groups.

In a phenomenon - that may be news to outsiders but not community observers - the presidential elections drew half the number of Hasidic voters that turned out for the recent obscure district leader contest. 1,708 voters pulled the levers on Heyward St. for both presidential candidates combined, versus 3,409 votes that the 2 district leader candidates netted. The NYT marveled after the DL race that the "members of the Satmar Hasidic community loyal to Mr. Lopez streamed to their polling places in numbers that made it seem as if the election would determine the nation’s president rather than the low-profile position of the district leader of a few Brooklyn neighborhoods." This was a huge understatement...

And there is something interesting about the votes South of Flushing, in the Kent Avenue poll site. Yossi Gestetner - in a post that he long ago retracted, but never took back the following - reported about a divide between old and New Williamsburg. He explained it as a generational divide between the young and the old, with the former shifting to the aranites. This assertion was based on the fact that the aranite-supported candidates did better in the poll sites on Kent Ave., south of Flushing Ave., than in the rest of the district. The Zalanites countered that these EDs have large percentages of non-Jewish voters.

The zalanite argument is now substantiated by the fact that President Obama won the Kent site by a 2/1 margin, and it's even stronger when one removes the 74th ED - a south of Flushing district that was moved from Heyward to the Kent site on September. (If there is also a generational split in general political leanings, it's clear that the younger voters are more conservative). Thus, in elections with high overall turnout, the zalanite vote will be diluted and outweighed by the general voters; but when the only elections on the ballots draw little general interest, the zalanite candidate will carry the poll-site, and increasingly so, with the growth of the Hasidic population in these Williamsburg outskirts.

No wonder that Lincoln Restler, who was defeated in the district leader race, criticized yesterday the inclusion of the South of Flushing EDs into Stephen Levin's district.

Gut Shabbos. Got a run for my Kugel... See below the chart of the poll sites including Orthodox voters, and the elections results of the 50th Assembly district broken down by EDs.

Poll Site/EDs	Obama	Romney	Total votes
114 Taylor Street	1223	567	Public Housing
61	272	76
62	458	98
63	184	86
64	61	83
65	122	78
68	116	84
71	10	62
157 Wilson Street	209	316	Public Housing
66	59	123
67	39	94
69	111	99
323 Roebling St.	421	160	Public Housing
57	239	63
58	182	97
183 South 3 Street	1161	64	Public Housing
53	243	6
54	249	12
55	110	22
52	559	24
195 Sandford Street
81	71	12
215 Heyward Street	543	1165
72	97	158
73	30	151
75	89	200
76	85	96
77	46	184
78	68	150
79	69	130
80	59	96
325 South 3 Street
56	144	15
60 Division Avenue	1091	299
48	367	72
59	346	79
60	350	89
70	28	59
70 Tompkins Avenue
80	59	96
850 Kent Avenue	631	319
74	35	118
82	35	73
83	331	118
84	154	9
85	76	1

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