STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Want to know about some of the latest political gossip? Want to know where one of your local elected officials stands on a given issue? Have any question at all related to the local political scene?
From time to time, national news outlets will make their way to Staten Island hoping to learn about our political peculiarities.
We’re considered a Republican part of one of the nation’s most Democratic cities. We voted for former President Donald Trump in two local landslides, but also voted for former President Barack Obama in 2012.
Republicans and Democrats have alternated the local congressional seat for the past 15 years, and there’s a Democrat elected to borough-wide office in Richmond County District Attorney Michael McMahon.
However, Republicans’ strong performances in the most recent elections suggest a tighter hold on the Staten Island electorate than in past years.
When outside news sources come to the borough, they can treat the Island’s voters as a sideshow, or miss important details about the local electorate.
As State Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) put it in a recent New York Times story looking at the local congressional race, “you cannot pinpoint Staten Island voters.”
“It’s not that they’re Republican or Democrat, left-leaning or right-leaning: It’s whether or not that candidate speaks to what touches Staten Islanders,” she told the broadsheet. “Anybody who thinks that they can put their finger on the pulse of Staten Island voters doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
Like the outgoing senator, we know it can be almost impossible to nail down Staten Islanders’ political leanings, so we want to hear from you to get a better understanding of what you want to know.
We’ll do our best to answer your questions as part of a new subscriber-exclusive column called “S.I. Politics Insider.” Send any questions you have to your favorite City Hall reporter, Paul Liotta, at PLiotta@siadvance.com, and I’ll do my best to include it in the new column.