Suffolk County voted twice for Obama before switching to Trump in 2016. What will happen this Election Day?
If there’s one thing consistent about Suffolk County voters, it is their inconsistency.
The eastern Long Island county — home to working-class families, farmers and affluent business owners — voted back-to-back for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, then shocked pollsters when it overwhelmingly chose President Trump in 2016.
In the same year, voters tapped Democrat Chuck Schumer to represent them in the U.S. Senate, then bounced among parties down ballot for state elections.
This year, the red-blue divide between Donald Trump-supporting Republicans and Joe Biden-backing Democrats is as sharp as ever — some of it on display in a hard-fought congressional contest.
Three-term Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, a lawyer and former state senator whose district covers the eastern two-thirds of the county, is in a tight race against Democratic challenger Nancy Goroff, the chair of the chemistry department at Stony Brook University.
The contest has drawn enough money to afford both candidates TV ads on New York City stations. Goroff portrays herself as the antithesis of President Trump and someone who will use “science to lead us out” of the COVID-19 crisis. Zeldin in his own ads attacks her as a “radical professor.”
Another hard-fought congressional race is in a district shared between southwestern Suffolk and eastern Nassau County towns, where Democrat Jackie Gordon is battling with Republican Andrew Garbarino to replace retiring Rep. Pete King, a veteran GOP representative.
At the Home Towne Tavern in Ronkonkoma, which serves a mostly conservative clientele, employee Patrick Cooney sits alone, observing the political divide and hoping the last four years were just an anomaly.
“I think they all just kind of drank the Kool-Aid and liked the idea of Trump not being a politician,” said Cooney, 62, who lives several towns over in Lake Grove and is voting for Joe Biden.
“He (Trump) is the swamp, as far as I’m concerned. And it’s not a swamp, it’s a gold-plated bathtub.”
Cooney admits that he’s an odd man out at the Pond Road watering hole, where patrons voted in line with the rest of Suffolk County in 2016.
It was the first time a Republican won the county since 1992, when incumbent George H. W. Bush narrowly beat Bill Clinton. Clinton took the county back four years later.
County Republican Committee Chairman Jesse Garcia believes voters were attracted to Trump’s brash personality, and hungry for a change-agent who would whisk them out of their financial depression.
“After eight years of political correctness and over-regulation and a stagnant economy, we needed somebody who was going to take action, bold action,” said Garcia.
But with COVID-19 cases rising again and small businesses facing bankruptcy, county Democrats are hoping the tide might turn in their favor this Election Day — so long as Biden sticks to an economic message.
“If you go into New York City, the fight among Democrats is who can be more progressive. That’s not a conversation you would have out here,” said County Democratic Committee Chairman Rich Schaffer.
“What would be the way you would turn out Trump? Well you can go on about his Twitter, and he’s crazy, but at the end of the day, that’s all side noise. People want to know, what have you done for me lately?” he explained.
While waiting to vote at a Dix Hills firehouse, Adrianne Passmore couldn’t think of anything the president has done for her.
“I’m thinking. And I’m still thinking,” she laughed. The 43-year-old healthcare worker is voting for Biden because she trusts his plan for the pandemic.
“Our current president is not dealing with it at all ... I think he ruffled a lot more feathers, he caused more friction than unity. Let’s put it that way.”
The enthusiasm is clear across the county, with record-high early voting and absentee ballots on both sides, said Board of Elections Republican Commissioner Nick LaLota.
“The energy feels like Black Friday, a Justin Bieber concert and the Fourth of July all packed into one,” LaLota said. “In the first three days of early voting, we’ve had double the amount of early voting compared to the nine days last year.”
Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in the county. The same goes for new enrollment, with more than 30,000 new Democrats this election year compared to more than 21,000 new GOP members, county data shows.
But Trump still has a visible stronghold all over the county, from the Hamptons to Huntington near the Nassau border.
Anthony and Dorrie Paolano have spared no expense sharing their love for the president at their Huntington home. A blow-up orange Trump in a blue suit greets you at the foot of the driveway, followed by Trump/Pence banners in various colors and sizes.
“I’ve been stopped by at least 15 to 20 people when I’m out in the street, and they all say they would love to do this, but they’re afraid to put signs out because people will ostracize their children," said Anthony Paolano, 63, while wearing a Trump 2020 mask.
On Long Island’s East End — filled with farmers and retirees — the love for Trump is a bit quieter, said Vanessa Gordon, a mother of two in Sag Harbor.
“There are a number of silent Trump supporters out here. It’s very hush-hush, but they certainly exist out here,” said Gordon, 31, who runs East End Taste Magazine. “They really want to stick with what they have ... their biggest concern is the economy and their 401(k)s."
Suffolk County is still a majority white county, but the Hispanic population has slowly increased to about 20% in the last decade, according to U.S. census estimates.
Schaffer sees that as a boon for Democrats. But there is still debate amongst Hispanics over who would be fit to serve as Commander in Chief.
Jose Colon made headlines last week when he posted a Facebook ad offering 20% off for Trump supporters at his Oakdale grocery store, Fresh Food Supermarket.
Colon was born in the Dominican Republic, grew up in Puerto Rico and moved to New York in 1993. He voted for Trump in 2016 for the same reason he backed Obama twice — because he saw both candidates as a fresh start.
He plans to vote for Trump again, and doesn’t blame the president for the COVID-19 crisis.
“This pandemic affected everybody in the world. It happened, we can’t control it," said Colon, 45, who also owns a restaurant. “But we have to reopen with caution. We can’t hold the economy back. We’re all small business owners."
In Huntington Station, a heavily-Hispanic neighborhood, Valentina Vargas doesn’t skip a beat when asked her about her choice: “Biden.”
The 30-year-old cellphone store worker emigrated from Colombia four years ago and has lived in the neighborhood for the last two.
“You know what Trump thinks about us. (It’s) the only reason, honestly,” Vargas said during a smoke break.
Rhetoric doesn’t matter in Suffolk County as much as results.
“There are a lot of people who feel like they were never taken care of, never put back in order after the ’08 crash happened,” said Schaffer.
“You have a lot of talk about property taxes, about creating jobs, about how to get the system to work for the average middle class. That’s what drives people here.”
