What will be the difference in support among Ulster County voters on November 5 between state senator Michelle Hinchey and assemblyperson Sarahana Shrestha, both Democratic legislative incumbents?
Hinchey and GOP candidate Pat Sheehan addressed the packed morning meeting of the Ulster County Area Chamber of Commerce in Kingston on the morning of September 26. Shrestha was a no-show, having declined the organization’s invitation to appear, her staff said, because of a conflicting engagement.
Under the chamber of commerce’s debate format, the candidates made short statements, had the opportunity to rebut each other, and answered questions submitted by the overflow audience of about 150. Hinchey received an attentive and mostly supportive response, while Shrestha left the chamber’s bully pulpit to the exclusive use of her Republican-Conservative opponent, Jack Hayes.
Rondout businessman and commercial real-estate broker Sheehan and retired state police officer Hayes, both a generation older than their opponents, provided a feisty defense of free enterprise and a crisp critique of governmental ineptitude. Their stance would have been more appreciated in a different part of the country — or in Ulster County a half-century ago.
The choices made by Shrestha and Hinchey reflected their different styles of engagement. The choices also reflected the differences in the nature of the two districts they represent.
Basically, Hinchey is never likely to face potential rivals on her left in the political spectrum in her district, while Shrestha in the 103rd Assembly District doesn’t worry about potential rivals to her right — as witnessed by her absence at the local chamber event.
An effective legislator
The ratio of enrolled Democrats to enrolled Republicans in the four-county 41st State Senate District Hinchey is roughly three Democrats (96,892) to two Republicans (64,222), with an additional 70,109 enrollees not registered to either major party. Assuming the major-party enrollees support the candidate of their own party, a successful Republican would have to win the support of about three-quarters of the non-enrolled-by-party voters. Difficult but not impossible.
At the chamber meeting and elsewhere, Hinchey has often mentioned her support for bipartisanship in getting things done. On some issues, upstate Republicans and upstate Democrats have more in common than upstate and downstate Democrats do.
Hinchey’s district encompasses not only the heavily Democratic northern and eastern portions of Ulster County but also heavily Republican Greene County, heavily Democratic Columbia County, and the part of Dutchess County north of Poughkeepsie. She opened a new office in Hudson on October 7 to serve Columbia and Greene counties, and she has an office in Pine Plains in eastern Dutchess.
Boasting that 82 of her bills have been signed into law in the past three and a half years, Hinchey characterizes herself as “a leading advocate fighting for rural and Hudson Valley communities in the state senate.” Her bills, she says, are often just common-sense legislation.
A progressive district
If all the non-enrolled voters showed up to vote for the Republican candidate on election day in the 103rd Assembly District, by contrast, that Republican would still lose, albeit by a very narrow margin. As of this February, the district has 48,884 Democrats, 19,182 Republicans and 29,262 non-enrolled-by-party registered voters.
For Shrestha to lose, members of her own party would have to desert her. It’s extremely unlikely her non-appearance at a chamber of commerce breakfast will have that effect.
“It’s a progressive district,” she said.
It is indeed. The district, consisting of the City of Kingston, many heavily Democratic townships in northern and central Ulster County plus the equally Democratic towns of Red Hook and Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, elected Shrestha in 2022. She is the only assemblymember outside New York City to belong to the Democratic Socialists of America.
In her first term in Albany, according to her website, Shrestha supported over 400 bills with a wide variety of progressive subject matter in areas such as housing, healthcare, climate, justice, education, good governance, immigrant rights and labor.
“The economy should work for working people, serving our communities — not a handful of billionaires,” she has written. “To achieve this, the state tax code must be reorganized to put power back in the hands of many.”
This assemblymember claims that she and her team have organized a dedicated network of volunteers who knocked on 33,000 doors in 2022. Declining all corporate donations, she pushes for a balance between the public and private sectors that better reflects the needs of the working-class people of the 103rd Assembly District.
A boost in value
The political world of Ulster County has changed enormously in the last half-century, and it continues to evolve. The population in-migration primarily from Manhattan and Brooklyn and the out-migration over time of Ulster-born people has had a profound effect on all our institutions. The Covid epidemic seems only to have intensified the winds of change.
Different strokes for different folks. How did the Ulster County Area Chamber of Commerce respond to the legislative candidates? This was not the world of Babbitt, written 102 years ago by the Midwestern novelist Sinclair Lewis. That historic American tale explored how a return to conformity benefited lifelong rebel George F. Babbitt to get the contacts, contracts and approval of his business-class peers.
The local chamber, headed ably by former Republican legislative leader Ward Todd, is no longer the conservative bulwark it once was. Though visible audience reaction is not always a good indicator of political opinion, it seemed Hinchey that got the most positive feedback to her views. That’s not surprising — there seemed at least as strong a representation of known Democrats as known Republicans.
Nationally, the membership in chambers of commerce has been declining for years. This popular event featuring the political candidates seemed to provide this local chamber a boost in value.
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