Bay Ridge Kevin
 | |
| Era | The Nineties |
|---|---|
| Age | 45-60 |
| Home | Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NY |
| Demographic | urban white Irish, police, union |
| Lean | Swing voter |
| Race | white |
| Successor | Chattanooga Travis |
Kevin is a veteran police sergeant from the Irish neighbourhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He is a union member and a social conservative who splits his vote between the parties, and he stays loyal to the Democrats mainly for his pay and pension.
Who they stand for
Kevin stands for the white ethnic public-sector workers of New York's outer boroughs. These are police officers, firefighters, transit workers and sanitation workers, most of them union members and Catholics. Their fathers voted Democratic under mayors Robert Wagner and Ed Koch. They themselves elected Rudy Giuliani in 1993 and re-elected him in 1997. Their unions, especially the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, still bargain with City Hall and endorse Democratic candidates in order to protect pay and pensions, even though many members vote Republican on crime, drugs and the Civilian Complaint Review Board. The reason these two loyalties can coexist in the 1990s is that the union endorsement still carries real value for its members. The number of murders in New York fell from more than two thousand in 1990 to under seven hundred in 2000, and Kevin credits the police department for this. His successor, Chattanooga Travis, keeps his union card for the pension but no longer follows the union's endorsement. By 2019, the persona in the same role, Union Jack, does not remember that the union ever made such endorsements. Kevin is the last voter in this line for whom the Democratic Party is still a realistic political home.
Playing to them
Kevin supports a president who funds the police, backs the death penalty, keeps drug sentencing tough, and stands by officers accused of using excessive force. He opposes a president who supports civilian review boards, needle exchange programmes, or lighter sentencing for drug offences; any of these moves him toward the Republican Party. His union loyalty is equally real. A president who cuts public-sector pensions, or who sides with management in a labour dispute, loses his support. A gun law that restricts the weapon he carries as an officer has the same effect.
Winning Kevin's support costs the support of the young men his fellow officers stop on the street. Brownsville Deon and Baltimore Kiana treat a pro-police president as an opponent. Castro Marty blames tough drug laws for allowing the AIDS epidemic to spread among users. Madison Steph and Scarsdale Ellen oppose the death penalty. North Philly Arlene, who wants more police officers in her own neighbourhood, can be kept alongside Kevin with care, but Deon cannot.
Where they live
The five states where Bay Ridge Kevin makes up the largest share of the electorate in the nineties:
- Massachusetts
- New York
- Rhode Island
- Pennsylvania
- Connecticut
Lineage
Bay Ridge Kevin → Chattanooga Travis → Union Jack
Union members who vote conservative, and what changes is how far the union vote and the conservative vote have separated. Kevin votes issue by issue and still votes Democrat on pay and pensions. Travis keeps the union card for the pension and votes Republican on guns, abortion and marriage, ignoring the union's endorsement. Jack keeps the card and votes Trump on trade, immigration and woke politics. Religion decided Travis's vote and plays no part in Jack's, because marriage was lost, abortion went to the Court, and the cultural issues of 2019 are ones Jack cares about without going to church. The union endorsement goes from binding, to ignored, to irrelevant.