WFP, Con, and Ind Party Strengths, Part II

Following up on the last post I went back through the last four election return numbers to get a better idea of how each third minor party; Independence, Conservative, and WFP were trending. Now I am not promising this is any sort of professional analysis, just some quick thoughts. Going back four years also gives two sets of mid term election numbers and two presidential year numbers to help with comparison. Here are the numbers;

2000
brooklyn - 56,024
ind - 424
con - 2,164
wfp - 385

staten island - 144,499
ind - 878
con - 7,131
wfp - 1,455

[Ind. candidate was not the Dem or Rep candidate]

2002 (parenthisis is the % difference from 2000)
brooklyn - 34,610 (-38.2)
ind - 525 (+23.8)
con - 1,616 (-25.4)
wfp - 263 (-31.7)

staten island - 88,996 (-38.4)
ind - 902 (+2.7)
con - 5,550 (-22.2)
wfp - 1,008 (-30.7)

[Ind. candidate was not the Dem or Rep candidate]

2004 (% difference from 2002) (% difference from 2000)
brooklyn - 57,089 (+64.9) (+1.9)
ind - 857 (+63.4) (+102.1)
con - 1,812 (+12.1) (-26.3)
wfp - 1,023 (+288.9) (+165.7)

staten island - 160,806 (+80.7) (+11.3)
ind - 1,806 (+125.2) (+105.7)
con - 8,409 (+51.5) (+17.9)
wfp - 2,634 (+161.3) (+81.0)

[Ind. candidate was also Dem candidate]

2006 (% difference from 2004) (% difference from 2002)
brooklyn - 30,424 (-46.7) (-12.1)
ind - 861 (+0.5) (+64)
con - 1,529 (-15.6) (-5.4)
wfp - 861 (-15.8) (+227.4)

staten island - 85,627 (-46.8) (-3.8)
ind - 2,806 (+55.4) (+211.1)
con - 4,320 (-48.6) (-22.2)
wfp - 2,041 (-22.5) (+102.5)

[Ind. candidate was also Rep candidate]


Some quick thoughts;
• Turn out in both boroughs was lower in 2006 than in 2002, even though 2004 saw increases in both boroughs over 2000
• The third minor party's maintained an overwhelming amount of their voters in Brooklyn from their 2004, with the Independence Party gaining in the off year. In Staten Island the Independence Party had a 55% gain, the Working Families Party [WFP] lost 22% and the Conservative Party took the largest hit losing 48% of their voters.
• Since the 2002 mid term election, the Conservative Party's numbers declined 5% in Brooklyn, whereas the Independence Party had a 64% gain and the WFP had a drastic increase of 227%. In Staten Island the Independence Party had the largest gain of 211%, WFP had a gain of 102% and the Conservative Party lost 22% of their voters.
• The ability for the Democratic candidate to pick up the Independence line as they did in 2002 is potentially a large piece of flipping this seat. Along with the WFP, the Independence Party has relative recent growth, compared to the Conservative Party which is on a recent decline. This could be a gain of at least 4,000 votes, if not more.