Bob Turner, Skidmore students (2021)
In this social media post, candidate Robin Dalton says she was happy to stop the GOP win in the Saratoga Springs elections. Surveys show she siphoned votes from the Democrats more than the GOP.
Robin Dalton’s plan to stop Heidi Owen West from winning the mayoral race in Saratoga Springs may have backfired. Republican West lost the race to Democrat Ron Kim, in a race that spent more money than any other in history. However, West lost even though Dalton's independent run for mayor actually siphoned votes from Kim.
This conclusion is according to data collected by students at Skidmore College in the Real Democracy class with Prof. Bob Turner. This is the fifth election that his students have analyzed.
Dalton, the Commissioner of Public Safety who broke with the Republican Party before her run for mayor, had run as an independent and had posted on social media the day after her loss that she was happy to have helped keep West out of the mayor’s chair. That post seems to have been removed.
While just 1.5% of people who identified themselves as “Somewhat Republican” voted for Dalton, and a negligible percent of “Strong Republicans” voted for Dalton, 13.9% of voters who identified as “Independent,” chose Dalton; 15.7% of people who identify as “Somewhat Democrat,” and 2% of those who are “Strong Democrat” voted for Dalton, the polling says.
The vast majority of voting followed party lines with Republicans voting for their candidates and Democrats voting for theirs. Independent voters tended to side with Democrats.
The one area that Turner found interesting was Voting District 23. He said that area was normally a swing area but that it has voted more on the Republican side in past years.
This year in the mayoral race only, it went 55% to Kim and 45% to West. In the other races, the numbers flipped and favored the GOP by similar margins.
Bella Bruno, a Skidmore first year student who worked on the survey, said the survey asked about the EMS station in the polling. They found that voters on all sides favored the EMS station, even those who identified as Republicans.
"This EMS station was something they really wanted,” she said of the voters in District 23. That ran afoul of West's initial involvement in a lawsuit that tried to get the EMS Station moved out of District 23.
Just before announcing her candidacy, West bowed out of the lawsuit, but the Democrats used that in last-minute attack ads to hurt West.
And Democrats attacked.
They relied on many attack ads to go after Republican opponents late in the race as many people decided whom to vote for in October or even in the final week of the race, the survey says.
Other conclusions the data show: Saratoga Springs is now more Democratic than Republican. In 2007, the GOP outnumbered the Democrats 41% to 31%, but now 39% of voters are registered Democrats and 29% are Republicans. A sizable portion, almost 25%, are independent. Students drew this information from the Saratoga County Board of Elections.
Forty-one percent of the voters consider themselves “moderate,” the polling says.
Public Safety, homelessness, and "civility in government" were the top three concerns of the voters polled.
Spending on all campaigns in Saratoga Springs came in at $385,044 a week before the race (more may have been spent in the final week). That is $130,725 over the next highest year, 2013.
Heidi Owen West spent the most of any candidate, about $102,000. Kim spent about $42,000 and Dalton about $19,000.
Despite Owen West’s name recognition as a lifelong Saratogian and a local, successful business owner, she needed to overcome the changing demographics of the city, Bruno, the Skidmore student, said, adding that the West needed Independents and some crossover Democrat voters to win, Bruno said.
“Heidi had to try to gain votes from everyone,” Bruno said, "but it didn't work, obviously."
According to the Real Democracy report website that Turner runs, the class is intended to use the Saratoga Springs elections as a test kitchen for politics and democracy in the country generally. Student volunteers “generally generally immerse themselves in the political and civic life of the community,” the site says.
More importantly, they conduct polls under the guidance of Turner. He uses Patrick Lanne, a Republican pollster with Public Opinion Strategies to help develop and distribute the poll. Turner admits the polling is not perfect, but it is good for local post-election polling, which is hard to come by in local elections anywhere in the country.
"I just do it because I'm interested, and it's a tremendous learning opportunity for the students,” Turner said.
Using the “text to poll” version of polling, 5,500 text messages were sent to Saratoga voters asking them to take the survey; 354 took the poll.
Students at work on the survey, analysis and reporting:
Danny Anderson, Judah Benjamin, Atticus Boyle, Bella Bruno, Alex Caneiro, Jillian Clark, Ethan Friedberg, Maddie Gadbaw, Dominic Giordano, Benno Greene, Max Heberlein, Jonah LeCompte, Antonio Mota, Ella Peterson, Javon Richardson, Oliver Tymann, Jack Wooten.