The Big Apple is a Changing!

The N.Y. Times reports that, according to a recent study, new immigrants accounted for at least one-third of the increase in the number of New York City voters since 2004, while the number of Irish, Italian and Jewish voters, the traditional core of the city’s voters, decreased slightly. The transformation of the voter rolls suggests a shift in the ethnic makeup of the city’s voters “that threatens to upend the balance of power that has governed local politics for decades.”

More than 38,000 of the 110,000 voters added to registration rolls between 2004 and 2007 were Russian, Korean, Chinese or Muslim.  About 29,000 of those registering were Hispanic, raising their total to 676,000 in 2007. The number of Jewish, Italian- and Irish-American voters declined by about 2,000, for a combined total of 489,100

It was not surprising for those familiar with New York that the demographic changes were especially evident in portions of Brooklyn and Queens.

KJ