The Red Wave in Queens Was Years in the Making
Trump’s historic margins in borough’s ethnic enclaves are only the latest sign that once reliable Democratic constituencies have grown disillusioned with the party.
A woman walks into the Seneca School in Ridgewood, Queens to cast her vote on November 6th, 2024. Dorian Geiger/Al Jazeera.
For the past three years, Vulgar Marxism has been something of a broken record on the subject of racial realignment in Queens. In August 2021, I published a piece showing that between 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump made substantial gains in the borough’s Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods. This was why Trump did better in Queens than George W. Bush did in 2000, despite how much more racially diverse the borough had become since then. In November 2021, I published another piece showing that Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa also made substantial gains in the borough’s Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods that year relative to his party’s performance in 2017. I further showed that GOP gains in these areas contributed to Vicky Paladino’s victory in an East Queens City Council race that year. In January 2023, I published yet another piece showing that Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin also made substantial gains in Hispanic and Asian areas of Queens that year relative to his party’s performance in 2018. Furthermore, I showed that GOP gains in the diverse outer boroughs of New York City contributed far more to Zeldin’s strong statewide performance than GOP gains in the city’s white suburbs.
Thus, it should come as no surprise to readers of Vulgar Marxism that Trump had another historic performance in the World’s Borough this year. As we review the numbers, I’d like to extend my gratitude to John Mollenkopf, the director of the Center for Urban Research at CUNY and one of this newsletter’s most distinguished subscribers, who generously provided the ED-level demographic data that made this piece possible.
Precincts where the citizen voting age population (CVAP) is 50-75% white swung fourteen points to the right this year relative to 2020, though Harris still won them by double digits. Precincts where the CVAP is over 75% white also swung fourteen points to the right this year relative to 2020, though Trump won these by more than thirty points. This is because the former cluster represents the gentrifying neighborhoods of Western Queens populated by progressive professionals, whereas the latter cluster represents the white ethnic enclaves of East Queens populated by the reactionary middle class.
Precincts where the CVAP is 50-75% black swung eighteen points to the right this year relative to 2020, while the swing in precincts where the CVAP is over 75% black was ten points. In the former cluster, Trump notched eighteen percent of the vote - the first time in decades that a Republican candidate managed to pull double digit support in black neighborhoods. This accords with data from other cities showing that Trump earned record black support this year, as well as exit poll data showing that he may have won up to twenty percent of black men. True, the GOP’s black support remains low in absolute terms, but it must be said that if this shift became permanent, it would severely undermine Democratic prospects for regaining the White House in the future. In an environment where elections are decided by a single percentage point in a handful of states with large black populations, the party is uniquely vulnerable to even minimal erosion among its black base.
Precincts where the CVAP is 50-75% Hispanic swung thirty-six points to the right this year relative to 2020, while the swing in precincts where the CVAP is over 75% Hispanic was an eye-popping forty-eight points. By far the most shocking result from last week was the fact that Trump actually defeated Harris in the latter cluster - areas where you’d be hard pressed to hear a word of English being spoken on the street - even as Harris prevailed in the former. If you ask me, this was because a chunk of the precincts in the former cluster are in Western Queens and home to a decent number of progressive whites, and another chunk is home to a decent number of blacks. The black and white shares of the latter cluster are negligible, while the vast majority of the non-Hispanic population is Asian - another demographic with whom Trump and Harris more or less tied.
Precincts where the CVAP is 50-75% Asian swung thirty-two points to the right this year relative to 2020, while the swing in precincts where the CVAP is over 75% Asian was thirty-four points. While Harris prevailed by four points in the former cluster, she barely managed to squeak out a win in the latter, continuing the trend of Trump doing better in supermajority-minority enclaves than he did in more mixed neighborhoods.
It’s important to note that in all of Queens’ ethnic enclaves, Harris bled far more support than Trump gained. Between 2020 and 2024, Democrats lost 29,974 votes in precincts where the CVAP is 50-75% white, 13,260 votes in precincts where the CVAP is 50-75% black, 10,207 votes in precincts where the CVAP is 50-75% Hispanic, and 19,904 votes in precincts where the CVAP is 50-75% Asian. In each of these clusters, Trump only gained 2,770 votes, 2,813 votes, 3,930 votes, and 4,985 votes, respectively.
Between 2020 and 2024, Democrats lost 2,912 votes in precincts where the CVAP is over 75% white, 15,594 votes in precincts where the CVAP is over 75% black, 1,983 votes in precincts where the CVAP is over 75% Hispanic, and 630 votes in precincts where the CVAP is over 75% Asian. In each of these clusters, Trump only gained 199 votes, 2,303 votes, 964 votes, and 127 votes, respectively. In other words, the dramatic improvement in Trump’s margins between 2020 and 2024 was mainly due to the abstention - rather than the persuasion - of previously reliable Democratic voters.
However, while it’s certainly important not to overstate the electorate’s rightward drift, it’s just as important not to minimize it either. As I previously reported, the Democrats’ raw vote total also declined in Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods in Queens between 2016 and 2020 - a trend that was observed in other major cities like Philadelphia. And as I mentioned above, the same trends have been unfolding at the state and local level in Queens for a number of years. This suggests that the drop-off in Democratic turnout in Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods this year isn’t an aberration attributable to the unique circumstances of this election, or a particular distaste for Kamala Harris. It’s part of a broader pattern of disillusionment that’s taken hold within formerly reliable Democratic constituencies. Currently, that disillusionment is manifesting more as apathy than as support for the GOP. But Republicans are indeed building support among constituencies that were once thought totally hostile to them. Unless we can talk about it without getting defensive, these trends may only accelerate going forward.
Not that I care much (or at all, really) about the fate of the Democratic Party. I started covering this topic with the hope of sparking conversation on New York’s socialist left. In other stories I’ve published, I’ve shown that after a rocky start in 2016, socialist candidates in New York have made impressive gains among voters of color - particularly Hispanics. My primary concern is that these voters’ rightward drift will imperil the left’s ability to make deeper inroads in the future, confining it to the same base of professional-managerial whites to which the Democratic Party is increasingly beholden. That would be the end of any hope for real class politics in New York, the only place in the country where socialists have managed to build up a significant electoral base in the post-Bernie era.
So, is the left finally beginning to grapple with reality? There are a few hopeful signs. In his statement on Trump’s victory, Zohran Mamdani - the socialist assemblyman from Astoria, Queens and candidate for mayor - noted that the results “demand we confront difficult truths: the Democratic Party’s failure to address the cost of living crisis, its refusal to maintain the expanded pandemic safety net, and its continued funding of a genocide fueled much of the despair that paved the way for Trump’s restoration.” He also recently went to the neighborhoods that swung hardest to Trump to speak with voters about their thoughts on the election. The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America also put out a statement addressing the economic context of the results, but then they claimed that Trump is at the head of a “white nationalist movement” - the most diverse one in history, apparently. At some point, the left must find a better way to talk about the role of racial grievance in reactionary politics than simply accusing Trump supporters of Nazism.
In any event, close watchers of New York City politics should consider purchasing a paid subscription to this newsletter. Help me keep the public informed of important developments years ahead of the sober think pieces in mainstream outlets and the hand-wringing Twitter threads from Democratic politicians. As a Marxist small business owner, the support of my readers means the world.