The Political Climate in 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
Rensselaer County, NY 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.
Rensselaer, 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 for the Democrat and I for the Independent. 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 Rensselaer County, NY
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 13,248 contributions totaling $650,775 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $49 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 1,392 contributions totaling $174,246 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $125 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)