Support for Republicans in deep blue New York is still growing almost two months after President Donald Trump took office.
The winner in a local race last week was a Republican in Southampton, a town of 70,000 people on the edge of Long Island. Democrat John Leonard lost to Republican Richard Martel in the race for a seat on the town’s governing council that had been held by a Democrat.
With more than 99% of the votes counted, Martel had 53% of the vote and won by a few hundred votes.
New York is mostly blue, but some surprising areas of red are strong and even growing. Long Island has three congressmen, and two of them are Republicans. In November 2016, the borough gave the most votes to President Donald Trump of any place in the city.
Long Island’s western shores have long been seen as a working-class haven where conservative candidates do better than those running on the island’s eastern shores. Some of the wealthiest liberals have lived in coves just a few minutes’ drive from Southampton in places like East Hampton and Montauk, which are vacation spots.
As a part of Long Island, the Hamptons are home