Sand Lake, NY is a small town located in upstate New York. It is a tight-knit community that prides itself on its vibrant local politics. Every four years, candidates from both major parties come to Sand Lake to campaign for the mayor’s seat and local representatives. Candidates come armed with their policy stances and ideas for improving the local economy and quality of life for all citizens. Voters are engaged in the process and have many opportunities to attend public forums or debates where they can ask questions and gain more information on the candidates' varying platforms. In addition to electing their leaders, members of the community also work together to actively advocate for issues important to them such as environmental protection, social justice, education reform, healthcare reform and more.
The political climate in Sand Lake, NY is leaning conservative.
Rensselaer County, NY is leaning liberal. In Rensselaer County, NY 51.6% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 46.0% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.4% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Rensselaer county flipped moderately Democratic, 51.6% to 46.0%.
Rensselaer county flipped back to Democratic in the most recent Presidential election, after voting Republican in 2016.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Sand Lake, NY is leaning conservative.
Rensselaer County, New York is leaning liberal.
Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metro Area is somewhat liberal.
New York is moderately liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Sand Lake, New York: d d d D r d
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Sand Lake, NY
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 4,521 contributions totaling $238,200 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $53 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 487 contributions totaling $54,330 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $112 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)