Lauren B. Cramer has raised two daughters in Brooklyn, where she lives and commutes into Manhattan as a lawyer. Allen Zerkin, an adjunct professor of public service, lives just a few miles away. So does Heather Weston, an entrepreneur.
But come this Election Day, all three Brooklynites — along with five other members of their households — plan to cast their ballots to support Democrats much farther afield in closely divided swing districts in New York’s Hudson Valley.
They are part of a growing set of affluent, mostly left-leaning New Yorkers taking advantage of an unusual quirk in state law that allows second-home owners to vote from their country cottages, vacation homes and Hamptons houses that just happen to dot some of the most competitive congressional districts in the country.
Call it the rise of weekender politics.
It is no accident. With a half-dozen competitive districts, New York has taken center stage in the fight for Congress, and Democratic organizers believe that registering a fraction of the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who own second homes could help tip a Republican majority to a Democratic one.
As of late September, they had helped nearly 2,500 voters shift their registration from New York City into one of the state’s swing districts, according to data provided by MoveIndigo, a group spearheading the effort. The numbers are expected to grow as voting nears.
The sprawling 19th District has seen the biggest shift, with 1,040 voters newly registered at second homes in the Hudson Valley and Catskills regions, according to the group. Representative Marc Molinaro, a Republican, won the seat by 4,500 votes in 2022, and is running neck and neck with Josh Riley, a Democrat.
“If you look at the map of our state, it’s like tomato soup with a couple blueberries floating in it,” said Ms. Cramer, who already cast her vote for Mr. Riley in Sullivan County, where she owns a second home and enjoys skiing and hiking.
“I realized, oh, my vote could make a difference,” she added.
Voter registration pushes are nothing new. Though they have not targeted second-home owners, Republicans in Hudson Valley are encouraging sign-ups in growing Orthodox Jewish enclaves, and Democrats have targeted college campuses. A smattering of second-home owners have taken it upon themselves to register outside the city in recent years, especially during the Covid pandemic.
Still, it is hard to find a precedent for a campaign quite like this one.
MoveIndigo initially set out with an even more ambitious project: to try to persuade Democrats who have been thinking about moving to settle in one of dozens of swing congressional districts across the country. The group’s website offers personalized recommendations and gauzy pages advertising the amenities of settling in, say, southern Nevada, which boasts both “breathtaking natural landscapes” and a slew of competitive races.
But after the 2022 midterms, when unexpected Democratic losses in New York and California handed Republicans a narrow House majority, its founders saw a unique confluence of factors making it possible to shift numbers more quickly closer to home.
With its cramped quarters and high concentration of wealth, New York City has long had a large number of residents who own second homes. By cross-referencing property records, voter rolls and other data, MoveIndigo identified more than 40,000 people it believed to be Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters who owned property in the very districts their party needed to flip back.
The group found that few of these people realized that they could legally vote from them. Other states largely dissuade or outright prohibit their residents from voting anywhere except a primary residence or legally designated domicile; California, for example, cracked down this year on second-home owners trying to register to vote in Lake Tahoe.
But New York courts have made it clear that state election law allows it if the voter has “legitimate, significant and continuing attachments” to the second home. And the state’s move to liberalize voter registration and vote-by-mail rules has made it even easier in recent years.
MoveIndigo’s pitch is blunt: “Your second home could determine the next speaker of the House.”
The group has raised close to $450,000 to dispatch tens of thousands of letters, postcards and registration forms, relying on large checks from Tom Brokaw, the longtime NBC anchorman; the former New York City councilman David Yassky; and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a dark money group that funds a slew of causes on the left. It has also partnered with local Democratic committees to promote its work.
“The opportunity is to cast a vote that could be a game changer at the ballot box in a place that you feel deeply about and have a long-term connection to,” said Ms. Weston, who in addition to casting her own ballot in the 19th District, helped found MoveIndigo with Charles Simon, a lawyer.
“Our role,” she added, “is to educate people that it’s legal and advantageous to do it.”
The push does not come without risks, especially for Democratic candidates already trying to rebut Republican accusations of elitism.
Adding more wealthy urbanites to the voter rolls in places like Long Island and the Hudson Valley could further stoke tensions that stretch back generations between full-time residents and the weekenders many blame for driving up housing costs, gentrifying their towns and setting statewide policy. The situation is particularly tense in the Hudson Valley, where an influx of full-time residents from Brooklyn and Manhattan is already reshaping the region in its image.
“It’s not enough that they are destroying New York City with their sanctuary city and pro-criminal policies,” said Matt Organ, Mr. Molinaro’s campaign manager. “Now Democrats are shipping these policies north, trying to hijack local priorities.”
Mr. Zerkin, the professor and an expert in conflict management, said he understood that concern, but he did not see himself as a cause for it. Though he and his wife now live primarily in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, they have been spending time at their home in Woodstock since the 1980s, even living there full time for a decade. Like other second-home owners, they pay local taxes.
“We have some roots up there and friends, and even some political connections,” he said.
At the end of the day, though, Mr. Zerkin, a loyal Democrat, said his own calculation was much simpler.
“One’s vote up there matters a lot,” said Mr. Zerkin, who plans to cast his ballot for Representative Pat Ryan in New York’s 18th District. “That just seemed like a no-brainer.”
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