Glen Stratton walked through the quiet downtown of the village of Pulaski on a crisp October Saturday. He passed the Chinese restaurant and the jewelry store and the historic theater, now closed. Its glittering digital marquee cycled through advertisements for local electoral candidates, including Stratton himself. “VOTE Glen Stratton Oswego County Legislator District 3,” it read.
Stratton was out looking for votes. He planned to knock on doors and make his pitch: No career politician, he could bring a new perspective to the county legislature, drawing on his time as a regional fire management coordinator with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
It was one of the coldest days of the fall, and Stratton wore sunglasses, a camo cap, jeans, and a mustard yellow coat over a T-shirt he described as “hunter safety orange” — the color he had chosen for his campaign to remind voters in his rural community that he, too, is an outdoorsman.
Every small way to connect with voters helps, since Stratton, campaigning in bright red Oswego County, is running as a Democrat. Records going back to the early 1990s show Democrats having never held a majority in the Oswego legislature. For much of the last decade, they held only two of 25 seats — though in a surprising development last year, they won five new seats, bringing their total seven.
This year, fueled by anger at the presidency of Donald Trump, a sense of momentum from 2025, and a belief that voters’ appetite for change could percolate down to the county level, the Democrats are hoping to flip the legislature. They say the county government could be doing more to address poverty and food insecurity in Oswego, which ranks among the poorest counties in New York. They have fielded 17 candidates, more than in any year going back to at least 2009 and one of the largest slates anywhere upstate, in a county that Trump won by 24 points in 2024.
Their candidacies raise the question of how far a midterm blue wave might go.
“To flip the legislature would be basically history-making,” said Christine Weisenburger, who became chair of the county Democratic committee last year. “I keep telling candidates, ‘You’ll be on Rachel Maddow when we flip this.’”
Oswego County Republicans told New York Focus that they feel the Democrats are turning the county legislature races into referenda on Trump rather than on their own governing. They’re proud of their record.
“Why would you choose something different when your taxes have been stable or decreased over the last 10 years?” said Terry Wilbur, the Republican committee chair and a former legislator. “We have a record of providing good services at little to no increase whatsoever in your tax base.”
National politics aside, there is also a more fundamental issue at stake in the Oswego County races: Does anyone care about their county legislature?
(Isabelle Taft / New York Focus)
‘What Does a County Legislature Do?’
Stratton turned off Pulaski’s main drag and onto a residential block of Maple Avenue. Joyce Quackenbush, on a walk with her beagle, Peanut, spotted the campaign flyers in his hand and asked what he was passing out. Stratton introduced himself and said he was running to represent her.
“I’ve been wanting to ask,” Quackenbush said. “What does a county legislature do?”
Her question has come up a lot on the campaign trail, several candidates told New York Focus. Some admitted they weren’t too sure about the answer before they decided to run.
“They take care of the daily business for the county,” Stratton explained.
To be more specific, New York’s 40 county legislatures set the budgets for county agencies, including the social services and public works departments. They dictate policy, like whether sheriff’s deputies can collaborate with immigration enforcement agents. They appoint people to industrial development agencies, which offer tax incentives to businesses. In Oswego, with a population of about 120,000, the total county budget is about $280 million.
County legislatures are powerful — yet the races to fill their seats are often sleepy affairs. This year, fewer than half of the seats up for election statewide are contested, making Oswego County, where about two-thirds of the legislature races have two candidates, something of an outlier. Voter turnout has traditionally been low. Incumbents have a huge advantage, said Lisa Parshall, a political science professor at Daemen University, outside Buffalo — which isn’t necessarily a problem.
“The fact that these aren’t highly contested races could just be indicative that people have high trust in their local officials and they’re doing an okay job,” she said.
But that dynamic is not static, said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University.
“You get into a period where there are big hikes in property taxes, or now what we’re getting into today: times where the national politics gets so highly polarized,” Reeher said. “Those issues and that attention can trickle down to the county level.”
That happened last year in neighboring Onondaga County, home to Syracuse, when Democrats won control of the legislature for the first time in decades. David Knapp, a longtime Republican legislator, said his party’s turnout was “absolutely abysmal.”
Knapp said Onondaga Republicans have had conversations with their Oswego counterparts to share advice: “Learn from us. Can’t take anything for granted. You’ve gotta get out there. Be seen. Remind people what’s going on and what you’ve done.”
‘Something I Can Do Besides Protest and Bitch’
Dozens of people stood along the side of Route 104, the state highway that runs through downtown Oswego, near the bridge over the canal that takes boats into Lake Ontario. They carried cardboard signs: “ICE OUT,” “NO KINGS SINCE 1776,” and “BE PART OF THE BLUE WAVE.” Some passersby honked and waved approvingly. A group of young men driving by called out, “We love Trump!”
It was the 82nd weekly demonstration on the bridge since early in the Trump presidency, according to Indivisible Oswego County, the local branch of the national progressive movement. Democrats agreed the Indivisible demonstrations are part of why they were able to field so many candidates this year, and why they feel optimistic about their odds next week.
Among the crowd were several of the 17 candidates for county legislature, including Stratton and Colette Badger, who carried a sign depicting the Statue of Liberty grabbing Trump by his coattails and the words “Grab him by the midterms.” Badger, who is running to represent the town of Oswego after a long career in nursing, said frustration with the Trump presidency had led her to become a regular attendee at Indivisible events.
After a friend suggested she run for county legislator, she dismissed the idea at first. Then she decided to do it.
“I kept thinking, there’s gotta be something I can do besides protest and bitch every day,” she said.
The consistent protests have triggered backlash. Claudia Tenney, the Republican congressional representative, has claimed without evidence that the protesters are “paid,” and the county’s Republican committee posted on Facebook that Indivisible is “backed by a well-funded, far-left political machine.” Edward Gilson, Stratton’s opponent and the incumbent, told New York Focus he calls the protesters “the insurrection group.”
Wilbur, the Republican chair, thinks voters will reward his party for what he described as a strong track record and a solid Republican plan.
“Not only is it economic development, but it’s being a conservative protector of your tax dollars,” he said. “It’s also making sure the future is bright.”
Democrats say that the Republican supermajority has failed. They point out that a quarter of the county’s children live in poverty, well above the state average of 18 percent. (In a letter inviting Bernie Sanders to visit, Weisenburger described Oswego as “the West Virginia of New York.” Sanders did not respond.)
They’re angry that the legislature voted to give each member and Sheriff Don Hilton raises at the same time that county residents are losing SNAP benefits and approved $35,000 to sponsor a NASCAR truck in Watkins Glen, though Democratic members also voted for that.
Ultimately, however, their pitch is simple.
“You can have what you’ve always had,” Weisenburger said. “Or you can say, ‘Okay, let’s try something different and see if life gets better.’”
(Isabelle Taft / New York Focus)
‘I’ll Certainly Vote For You’
Most county legislature races in upstate New York are battles for a few thousand votes, run on shoestring budgets, with no staff. There are no polls and no real way to gauge the likely outcomes other than debating the significance of a yard sign advantage and tallying doors knocked.
At this scale, it’s possible for candidates to attempt to meet all of their potential voters. A few hours on the county legislature campaign trail is enough to reveal that partisan affiliation is often less important than human connections.
Tod Simons, the Democrat running to represent parts of the City of Oswego and surrounding rural areas, rang a doorbell on a brilliant Sunday morning and waited, clutching a handwritten list of voter addresses and names on a piece of lined paper.
Simons, who has spent almost his entire life in Oswego County, said he never dreamed of running for office. But his work history turned out to be perfect preparation for a hyperlocal campaign. He recently retired after years as an elementary school math and science teacher, and he still repairs hot rods and motorcycles on the side. He’s encountered a broad spectrum of humanity, he said, including many of the people he’s now asking to vote for him. He once bought a car from his opponent’s mother.
When an elderly man came to the door with a cane, Simons exclaimed: “You’re Jimmy Eckert’s uncle, aren’t you? I taught him how to drive his Camaro back in the day.”
“I know you did,” the man replied, smiling. “You’re running for something.”
“County legislator,” Simons confirmed.
“Good for you,” the man said. “I’ll certainly vote for you.”
New York Focus followed Simons, Stratton, and two other Democratic candidates as they canvassed over a recent weekend. Voters’ key concerns were varied and specific. Some were worried about the impending arrival of Micron’s $100 billion semiconductor plant complex near Syracuse, which will likely bring new residents and development to Oswego. One of those voters was equally anxious about the safety issues posed by Amish teenagers driving horses and buggies on highways alongside SUVs.
At one house, Stratton barely got through his pitch before the woman he was talking to interjected.
“There’s a beaver dam right over here that the fishermen keep fucking knocking down,” she said. The woman and her husband, who live along the Salmon River, said they had asked Pulaski’s mayor and other elected officials to do something about it, to no avail. Stratton offered praise for beavers but didn’t pledge to save the dam. The couple didn’t seem to mind.
One name rarely came up on the campaign trail: Trump. And the candidates didn’t share their party affiliation unless someone asked. (Gilson, Stratton’s opponent, views this as a tactic designed to confuse voters. “They will lie, they will mislead people,” he said of Democrats.)
When Quackenbush asked, Stratton told her he is running as a Democrat and as an independent. She voted for Trump in 2024 and still likes him, she told New York Focus, and plans to vote for Bruce Blakeman for governor and to reelect Tenney, whose office has helped her resolve issues with her social security benefits. She said that she also plans to vote for Stratton. Though she’d been hoping he was a Republican, his position on the independent line made her think he would be more open-minded than other Democrats. She also liked what she heard about his experience working for a federal agency.
More than anything else, though, she liked that he was standing on the sidewalk, talking to her.
“You got my vote just for taking the time,” Quackenbush said to Stratton before she and Peanut headed for home.
This story first appeared in New York Focus. Read the original here.
Source: www.governing.com
