In early 2023, Onondaga County Democrats thought they had their best candidate to spur a competitive race for county executive.
Portions of the party’s progressive and moderate wings came together around a consensus candidate: Assemblyman Al Stirpe, who represents the 127th district in the New York State Assembly.
The Democrats involved believed Stirpe had name recognition. He could raise money to at least compete with County Executive Ryan McMahon.
Stirpe had also worked on bringing Micron to Central New York. He provided at least something of a counter to the campaign they anticipated from McMahon.
The assemblyman hosted meetings with key state legislators who helped birth Micron’s community benefits agreement. Stirpe carried the Green CHIPS act through the state legislature.
Members of the party, including the eventual designee county legislator Bill Kinne, felt they needed to offer an alternative to McMahon’s vision for the county.
“We weren’t doing ourselves and we weren’t doing the voters of our county any favors by not having a candidate run in that race,” said Max Ruckdeschel, the chair of Onondaga County’s Democratic Committee. “We absolutely needed a candidate.”
And then, with a text, Stirpe told the party he wouldn’t run.
“I had more of an interest in running in 2019 than I did in 2023,” Stirpe said. “But the bottom line was, when it came right down to it … I just like the state legislature more. It has more variety of policy issues. The county executive job is an administrative job more than anything else. It’s just managing a bunch of people and programs that the state and federal government provides most of the funding for.”
Democrats eventually embraced Kinne. But the selection process was messy, late and indicative of yearslong issues that have marred competitiveness in local elections, party members said. The party also had too few challengers down the ballot, they said.
Only five of this year’s 17 legislature races were contested, down from 13 in 2019 and 15 in 2021. Democrats ran just nine candidates in legislature races this year, down from 15 and 17 in 2019 and 2021, respectively. Republicans ran 14 candidates in 2019 and 2021 and 13 this year.
Predictably, McMahon crushed Kinne.
“What we were talking about was the message people want,” McMahon said on election night.
But some Democrats wonder if several down-ballot results and a late data-driven approach might change their competitiveness and usher in change within the party.
‘We are not organized’
Democrats faced a tall task last summer.
McMahon outmaneuvered them and whipped enough votes to pass the $85 million aquarium project in the Inner Harbor. The project, he said, would jumpstart unrealized economic development potential in the area.
The Democratic party wanted a candidate who could articulate opposition to McMahon’s vision. The county should spend that $85 million to fight lead poisoning, create affordable housing and improve the region’s public transit system, they argued.
But Democrats couldn’t find a candidate willing to articulate that vision to voters.
The aquarium vote in late August kickstarted a laborious and disorganized search for a candidate for county executive.
Stirpe materialized as a viable option that party members could agree on closer to the winter. He never issued OCDC’s executive committee a letter of intent. Kinne was the only Democrat to declare an intent to run against McMahon. When Stirpe declined, Kinne became the de facto pick.
Legislator Mary Kuhn, who will retire at the end of her term, said the late designation robbed Democrats of valuable months of campaigning.
Kinne struggled to raise funds due to the late designation and donors believed he could not win, Kuhn said.
“Why would I give him money if he can’t win, if I don’t see a winner?,” Kuhn said. “We knew that was going to be a possibility with Al, and we knew it was going to be an uphill battle for Bill.”
Kinne then underperformed on Election Night relative to other Democrats down the ballot. He ran a full percentage point behind fellow Democratic candidate Sunny Aslam, a placeholder who didn’t run a campaign. Syracuse.com quoted Aslam as saying he had a 1% chance of serving if elected.
“We are not organized,” Kinne said on Election Night.
Ruckldeschel, who was voted chair by party members last October, said he had been handed a “blank slate” for that race. He argued finding a county executive candidate should take at least a couple years of planning. Ruckdeschel was not involved in conversations about a potential candidate until he began his chairship, he said.
Filling the party’s rolodex with willing and viable candidates to maximize months of campaigning will take time, Ruckdeschel said. This election cycle is part of the start of that process, he said. Democrats picked up some municipal offices in the towns of Manlius, Skaneateles, Salina, and Lysander.
“That is where we are going to find candidates in years to come for larger offices like county legislature or state senate,” Ruckdeschel said.
‘I’m never going to encourage primaries’
Part of the Democrats’ issues appear to be their inability to get a read on voters’ pulses.
Over the last three odd-year cycles, primary challengers defeated 11 of 18 candidates designated by the party to run for a county legislature, common council or mayoral seat. That includes this year, when four challengers won races in the six primaries for such seats.
Maurice Mo Brown, one of the candidates who upset his primary opponent this year, said the party doesn’t always support the competition that comes with primaries.
He used former NY-22 Democratic candidate Francis Conole’s race from 2022 as an example. Brown argued the field of candidates — Syracuse City Councilor Chol Majok, DeWitt Town Councilor Sarah Klee Hood and former New York State Assemblyman Sam Roberts — had much to contribute to the eventual Democratic platform.
“But because (Conole) was the pick of OCDC, it was like get behind him or get out,” he added. “I think that’s why we lose those seats.”
The party has, at times, asked candidates who did not receive the party’s designation to run for a different office rather than running a primary campaign, the party chair Ruckdeschel said.
Candidates have had varied responses to that request, Ruckdeschel said. He also said he feels bound to support designated candidates whether he personally supports them.
The party has struggled keeping volunteers and party members engaged when their preferred candidate is not the designee, Ruckdeschel said.
“We lose that activity, we lose that interest and effort,” he said. “So I don’t run from primaries. I don’t move heaven and earth to stop primaries. But I’m never going to encourage primaries.”
A push from ‘fresh faces’
In late August future city auditor Alex Marion and Josh Ludden, who has worked on Democratic campaigns in Central New York, came up with an approach for this fall’s cycle: using board of elections information about registered voters to target those who only vote sometimes.
They targeted voters who voted when the mayor, a Congressional representative or the president was on the ballot, but not in other years.
Marion and Brown, both candidates who the party did not designate, were among those who pushed the strategy.
“It was driven by fresh faces but received well by everyone,” Marion said.
The architecture for the approach didn’t exist in the local party, despite the more data-driven approaches used by state and national candidates.
Marion believes the approach helped candidates like Diane Darwish Plumley, a family court judge candidate, and Emily Essi, a county clerk candidate. Both are first-time candidates leading in races that look headed for a recount.
Democrats sent 30,000 additional pieces of mail to voters, phone calls and text messages because of the push, Marion said.
The effort, which Marion labeled the “Victory Project,” started like the search for Stirpe: without party leadership, though they eventually helped, according to Marion.
Ruckdeschel argued concerted efforts to increase turnout in the city have always been key to Democrats’ success. He said he made that central to his campaign for party chair. Despite that, he said he does not consider Democrats’ get out the vote strategy in the city revolutionary.
“I think we just worked hard, had good candidates, and then put our efforts where we could win,” he said.
“What Victory Project did was the basics of campaigning done extremely well: good targeting met with the right voter contact,” Marion said. “Everything we did had an impact — and the results on election night showed.”
The rising “fresh faces” of the party sets up an interesting showdown in 2024. More high-profile races will be on the ballot in a presidential election year, like the contest for New York’s 22nd Congressional district.
But just as the cycle winds down, in October, party members will again be forced to pick a party leader, meaning Ruckdeschel will also be on the ballot.
“It’s just getting to work early,” Ruckdeschel said of the 2024 and 2025 races.
Read more of central current’s coverage
Syracuse police officer accused of slapping child, pushing face near ‘soiled sheets,’ court records say
Jacob Ternosky, 33, was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Ternosky has worked for the police department since 2019.
Salt City Coffee employees try to become 1st at locally owned coffee shop to unionize
Workers say the company fired its head roaster because of the unionization effort.
Syracuse University students raise encampment in solidarity with Palestinians during ongoing war in Gaza
The encampment is one of dozens at university and college campuses across the United States.
