Party On

Republicans aren’t known to be any better at managing garbage pickup than Democrats. Nonetheless, electoral campaigns in the suburbs have become infected with partisanship, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The phenomenon follows a larger national trend toward greater party identification, but the politicization of the suburbs has more to do with demographic change than red-blue divisions. As suburbs, especially middle-ring and exurban areas, grow and grow more diverse, experts say, their new residents import traditional party affiliations. Politicians begin to declare party affiliations on campaign literature to lay claim to a growing base.

A few suburban areas, of course, have been notoriously partisan. The last bona fide political machine in America may have been Al D’Amato’s Republican lock on Nassau County, which propelled him from county executive to three terms in the United States Senate, and the Democrats’ success on Long Island has only deepened the partisan divisions. But most elections below the state level remain nonpartisan, at least on paper: A 2001 survey by the National League of Cities shows 77 percent of cities still hold nonpartisan elections.