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While the Democratic presidential candidate again prevailed in Monroe County last November, data releases from the Monroe County Board of Elections show shifts in voter patterns compared with previous elections.
The more than 360,000 ballots cast in Monroe County on Nov. 5 represent 73.7 percent of total registered voters, the lowest percentage turnout in presidential elections over the past two decades. The high point, 80.3 percent, was the 2008 election. Four years ago, 77.3 percent of registered voters went to the polls. In nominal terms, the 2024 turnout was down from the record-setting 2020 election by more than 15,000 voters.
Votes for Democrat Kamala Harris easily outnumbered those for Republican Donald Trump, who was sworn in for his second term Monday. She won the county with 214,757 votes to Trump’s 145,940.
It is not surprising that Harris prevailed in Monroe County. The county leans blue, especially in its enrollment. Over the past two decades, Democratic presidential candidates have always won more than 50 percent of the vote in Monroe County. From 2008 to 2020, they garnered between 57 percent and 60 percent of the vote in presidential elections.
Votes for Democratic presidential candidates first spiked in 2008 to more than 200,000, a record high broken only in 2020 when Joe Biden received over 225,000. Outside of a high turnout year in 2004, when 163,000 Monroe County ballots were cast for President George W. Bush, vote totals here for Republican presidential candidates have remained relatively consistent at about 130,000 to 140,000.
Harris received nearly 11,000 fewer votes in Monroe County than Biden did in 2020. Yet her share of the total vote (59.1 percent) was slightly higher than Biden’s (58.8 percent) because fewer voters last year pulled the lever for third-party or write-in candidates.
Trump’s vote total increased in 2024 by 279 compared with four years earlier. His share of the total vote also rose, to 39.6 percent from 38 percent. In 2016, he received 39 percent of all votes.
Across nearly every part of Monroe County in 2024, the GOP outperformed its 2020 election presidential vote share. This occurred in places of historical strength for the party, such as the town of Sweden, which improved by 3.3 percentage points (from 47.6 percent of the vote in 2020 to 50.9 in 2024).
It also occurred in places where Democrats typically hold an advantage. The Republican vote share in the northwest and northeast sections of Rochester grew by 5 points and 4 points, respectively.
The town of Perinton was the area in which Democrats improved their vote share the most, by 1.6 percentage points (growing from 58.8 percent in 2020 to 60.4 in 2024). The gains in the towns of Mendon, Penfield, and Webster by Democrats were under 1 percentage point.
City versus the suburbs
The Board of Election numbers also show a turnout divide between the city of Rochester and its suburbs, particularly for Democratic Party voters.
In the city, slightly more than 50,000 votes were cast for Harris. That was 7,000 fewer votes than were cast for Biden in 2020, and puts it on par with 2004, a low for Democratic votes in a presidential election. (In 2008, votes for a Democratic candidate peaked, when nearly 63,000 city residents cast their ballot for Barack Obama.)
The eastern section of Rochester, generally one of the strongest areas for Democrats, had a large drop in votes for the party’s candidate from 2020 to 2024, falling by more than 3,400 votes. The northwestern and southern areas of Rochester also had large drops as well, falling by over 2,700 and 2,500 votes, respectively.
Rochester’s northeast bucked that trend, however. Its total votes for Harris rose by over 1,100 votes compared with those cast for Biden.
While the city has long been a Democratic stronghold, it is suburban voters who have driven up the party’s countywide margins. This year, 164,000 votes were cast for Harris across Monroe County’s 20 towns.
That total is a decline of 3,000 votes compared to 2020. However, suburban voters still accounted for 77 percent of all ballots for the Democratic nominee, the highest proportion over the past six presidential elections.
In keeping with historical trends, southeastern towns were the strong areas for the Democratic presidential candidate. In particular, the towns of Brighton, Perinton, Irondequoit, Pittsford, Penfield, and Henrietta garnered the largest margins of victory for Harris.
Republican strongholds
In the city, where the Democrats dominate voter enrollment, 11,900 voters cast a ballot for Trump in the 2024 election.
Outside of the high turnout year of 2004, when the GOP ticket drew some 18,000 votes, an average of about 10,000 city residents have typically voted for Republican presidential candidates across the past two decades. Those voters come primarily from Charlotte, North Winton Village, and city neighborhoods west of Mt. Read Boulevard, although even there, they are still outnumbered by Democratic voters.
Most of Trump’s support was in the suburbs, where he won 134,000 votes. That comprised 92 percent of his total countywide.
Similar to the city, outside of a high turnout for 2004, the number of suburban residents who vote for Republican presidential candidates also has remained relatively stable. There was a bump of 6,000 votes in 2020, however, which persisted through to this year as well.
Towns in the western part of Monroe County, such as Parma, Ogden, Clarkson, and Hamlin, are the strongest performers for Republican candidates. In 2024, at least 57 percent of the vote in each town went for Trump.
Greece has produced the largest number of votes for Trump (some 26,000 in 2024), but in recent elections has also seen a large number of votes for Democratic presidential candidates (some 23,000 for Harris). The towns of Gates, Chili, Webster, Mendon and Rush also have returned very narrow margins of victory, but for Democratic presidential candidates.
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.
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Fewer people pulled the lever for third party candidates because of the change in electoral laws that make it difficult for third parties to get on the ballot. If you want to vote Green or Libertarian, you have to write in the candidate. Thank you, Andrew Cuomo, for your parting gift.