Being Red in a Blue State

By: Maura Gladys
In-depth politics story




Tompkins County is home to the City of Ithaca, widely known as one of the most liberal cities in the country. This could make it seem like Tompkins County is a one-party town.

However, the Tompkins County Republican Party is working to change that.
“Our main goal is to regain the ground we’ve lost to the Democrats over the past 20 years…We’ve made strides with new ideas, new members and a new financial base, but more needs to be done,” Mike Sigler, chairperson of the Tompkins County Republican Party said.

Tompkins County currently has 16,132 registered Republican voters, compared to the 29, 601 registered Democrats. In the 2004 elections Democrats contributed a total of $318,267 while Republicans contributed $22,100. The numbers can be convincing, but according to Sigler, it’s not the numbers, but the ideas that matter.

“A lot of it is just breaking through with your ideas. You can have the best plan in the world, but if nobody hears it, the people won’t know you have a position they can support….The majority tends to overwhelm, even when their ideas won’t work,” Sigler said.

There are several pockets in Tompkins County where there’s a strong conservative tone. Sigler cites Dryden, Groton, Enfield, and Caroline as GOP strongholds?
Sigler and other Republican organizations in Tompkins County have faced several obstacles working in such a liberal stronghold

“We’ve put out hundreds of McCain signs, although we’ve had trouble keeping them up in the City of Ithaca,” Sigler said.

Ray Mensah, the President of the Cornell University College Republicans has had similar problems. “I’ve put up signs and posters advertising our organization and when I go back about 10 minutes later to check on them, they’re already taken down.”

Even though it appears as if Obama will take New York State on November 4th, Sigler and Mensah aren’t discouraged. Mensah stresses the fact that the CU College Republicans can still give funds to the Republican National Committee, and points out that they’re traveling to swing states such as Pennsylvania to campaign. Sigler meanwhile stresses the importance of local government and other seats. “We have three State Senators who my committee people are investing most of their time in. We are also working hard to get out the vote for Richard Hanna and George Phillips who are running for Congress.”

Although Republicans in Tompkins County are facing a distinct disadvantage, they’re still positive about their party. That’s evident in the first line of Mike Sigler’s ‘Message from the Chair’ on the Tompkins County Republican Party website. He states, “It’s a good time to be a Republican.”

Below is a map with the main Republican areas in Tompkins County, as well as a video I made documenting my quest to find some McCain supporters in Tompkins County.(The stats from the map were taken from city-data.com


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