The Race to Watch Today
Voters in the New York's Hudson Valley go to the polls today to select a replacement for former Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. On the ballot are a former Wall Street type and a long entrenched Albany populist pol – a guy who has often enjoyed the support of unions in his career. In what is surely a sign of the changing faces of both parties, the pol is the Republican and the Wall Street type, the Democrat.
The Dem, Scott Murphy, 39, is a Harvard-educated venture capitalist originally from Missouri who moved to the district three years ago. If he wins he's already said he'd like to join the moderate Blue Dog caucus. The Republican is James Tedisco, 58, the New York State Assembly minority leader who last year drew then Governor Elliot Spitzer's ire when he blocked Spitzer's attempt to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. "Ultimately, this race is about a choice between Wall Street and Main Street," says Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which helps elect House Republicans. "Scott Murphy personifies everything that has gone wrong with our economy, while Jim Tedisco has made a career out of taking on powerful interests and fighting for the middle class."
If this election had been held in last year, the narrative in this district that Obama won with 51% of the vote would've likely been change versus experience -- the fresh faced reformer versus the insider. But a lot has changed since November so the debate has focused on the stimulus bill. Tedisco, who for a month avoided taking a position on the bill, came out against it in the wake of the AIG bonuses. Now, the meme is that the race has become a referendum on Obama's first 60 days in office – a bit of a stretch, though it is odd that Obama chose not to wade into this race until last week when he finally endorsed Murphy and sent out two emails to 60,000 of his supporters living in the area. The Democratic National Committee also produced a $10,000 tv ad last week entitled “Obama Endorses Murphy” that's now up and running on Albany stations. That said, Dems have invested much less in the race:
Dems:
DCCC $591,591
DNC $10,000
AFSCME $72,563
Planned Parenthood $5,000
SEIU $546,920
Total: $1,226,074
Rs:
NRCC $817,681
HUCK PAC $1,155
National Republican Trust PAC $779,306
Our Country Deserves Better PAC $156,407
National Right to Life $22,358
RNC (transfer down & 441) $280,000
Total: $2,056,907
Individually, the two are pretty evenly matched. As of March, Murphy had raised $1,149,161 just 51% of that from New Yorkers while Tedisco has raised $1,036,612, 85% instate, according to CQ political money line.
Cynics say Obama avoided until the last minute staking his name on a race that is too close to call, though others argue that Obama spending time campaigning in a divisive race would've been counter productive to his bipartisan outreach and the image that he's actually pretty swamped what with the economy and two wars. Whether it was Murphy surging on his own mojo or fortuitous timing, in the wake of Obama's endorsement Murphy pulled ahead of Tedisco 47% to 43% in a poll by the Siena Research Institute. The same group had Tedisco up by four points, 45% to 41% earlier this month and ahead by 12 percentage points 46% to 34% in February. "The trajectory of this race has turned towards Scott Murphy because he represents the type of change people are looking for," says Brad Woodhouse, a DNC spokesman. "That this race is as close as it is in a district that leans heavily Republican just proves that the President's approach to getting our economy moving again, an approach Scott Murphy has embraced, has broad support."
For all that Gillibrand won reelection in November with 62% of the vote, registration heavily favors Republicans and until Gillibrand – a pro-gun moderate – this was a safe GOP seat. The district, which went for George W. Bush by 54% in 2000 and 51% in 2001, is rated R+3 by the Cook Political Report. Some argue the PR disaster would be worse for the GOP if they lose this seat because it means that none of their attacks on Obama and congressional Dems have gained traction and they still have yet to find a formula to get them back into the northeast where they are rapidly becoming an endangered species.
The race is too close to call, and special elections have never been known for their turnout. But whomever wins both national parties are sure to claim victory tonight as an endorsement or repudiation of Obama's performance thus far.
Update:
A dispatch from Michael Scherer aboard AF1. White house Spokesman Robert Gibbs, who is busily lowering expectations:
Republicans have a significant voter registration advantage – 71,000 more voters are registered Republicans than are registered Democrats.
Kirsten Gillibrand was the first Democrat to hold NY20 in 28 years when she upset then-Representative John Sweeney in 2006. Sweeney faced significant ethical issues.
Even though Obama won the district in 2008, it had previously been solidly Republican. President Bush won NY20 in both 2000 and 2004. In fact, NY20 was one of only six districts in New York State voting for President Bush in 2000, and one of only nine supporting him in 2004.
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1
Obama only won 51% of the vote, Jay.
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2
Yeah -- I just updated and changed that -- hoped to catch it before anyone saw! JNS
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3
Regardless of who wins the flaks and their enablers in the media will aid and abet a tremendous amount of pointless and inaccurate spinning. Jay's post is merely laying out the ground rules for what is going to happen for several segments on the cable shows tonight.
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The truth is that the outcome of the election will signify precisely nothing in regards to Obama or the state of the Republican party. The main reason this true is that turnout for this election will be extremely low. Looking to a few thousand people in upstate New York to serve as a barometer for the country is silly.
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Of course, looking for meaning and significance in the wrong signals is what the modern media does best.
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There MUST be a better use of the time of the high-priced reporters working for the media than simply regurgitating talking points from a bunch of flaks. -
4
I'm noticing that I find the phrase "moderate Blue Dog" quite problematic. The amount of ideological contortion necessary to be a Democrat on spending yet a Conservative on taxation absolutely disqualifies you from the label 'moderate'.
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Apparently having a consistent moral philosophy (whatever it may be) is 'extremist' and moderate refers to having no principles whatsoever. I'd accept 'centrist' in that context but moderate it aint't. -
5
Jay –
Just so you know I can lob gratitude as well as grenades, your piece is the best and timeliest summary of this race I've seen. This is the sort of reporting that makes Swampland worthwhile, at least to me.
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6
There are several things JNS leaves out of her story.
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1. For weeks Tedisco wouldn't say whether he supported the stimulus bill or not and finally after being pressured constantly he came out against it.
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2. The national GOP has been running very offensive and devisive ads including one in just the last few days with images of the 9-11 hijackers AND Bin Laden. Tedisco claimed he was against the ads but they kept running anyway and thats when his numbers started slipping.
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3. One of those ads were shown to contain bogus information about Murphy sending jobs overseas and had to be taken down, further eroding Tedisco's credibility.
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4. In addition to President Obama endorsing Murphy, VP Biden cut a radio ad for him and Murphy endorsed President Obama's plans for the economy including the stimulus bill very early on.
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5. Tedisco pulled the typical GOP move and kissed Rush Limbaugh's ring after he had come out with a statement saying that he wasn't concerned with Limbaugh. That was right before the polling numbers flip flopped.
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Greg Sargent has been covering this for weeks and you can find plenty of info on the race at his plumline blog. -
7
@sgwhite:
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2) I'm just over the border from that district (I'm in SW VT), and most of the local stations on my cable package broadcast out of Albany. I haven't seen anything quite as obnoxious as that (just the usual demagoguery). Where were they running those?
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3) The PACs are still running w/ the jobs to India bit. Maybe the official Tedisco campaign pulled theirs, but it's still being flogged.
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What really irritates the crap out of me is the false conflation of the AIG bonuses and the performance bonuses of some company Murphy was a director of. It's just insulting to the viewer; we're not all mouthbreathing imbeciles. -
8
arbitrary
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The Bin Ladin ad was a webad meant to drum up attention through press releases.
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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/house-republicans/gop-candidate-on-nrsc-bin-laden-attack-ad-not-my-problem/
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If you click on the links in the post it takes you back to the story about the other ads Tedisco supposedly wanted taken down. -
9
Well, of course he wanted them taken down once they started to hurt his poll numbers. Where was his principled stand before the numbers slipped? It's laughable when pols (on both sides, really, but much more so on the R side) try to dodge responsibility for the ads run by the national parties. I'd almost buy it for the PAC ads, but it's ridiculous to think that the NRCC didn't coordinate w/ Tedisco's campaign.
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10
This is not some referendum on Obama or his agenda. This is about a microscopic race in a Republican district that just happened to vote for a DINO - Dem In Name Only.
This means more for the future of the GOP than Obama.
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11
[...] blog has a full breakdown of spending by national and local campaigns. It’s more than $4 [...]
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12
Thanks very much for reporting on this, Jay Newton-Small.
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13
This race is easy to look at as a referendum on Obama and his economic plan. Republicans hold a 70,000 voter registration advantage on the democrats. Tedisco came out against Obama's plan and Murphy ran his campaign almost entirely on his support of Obama and the plan. The district had voted republican for 28 straight years until 2008. It's almost impossible not to look at this as anything but a referendum.
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14
That should have been until 2006. My mistake.
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15
I was just over at Nate Silver's FiveThityEight and Tedesco has a 102 vote lead on Murphy out of 147,000 votes cast. 50.02% to 49.97%. If Tedisco keeps his lead I would be heartened if I was a republican. They have a huge lead in voter registration, but with the anti-republican sentiment in the country, a win is still a win. This would have to give them hope that they aren't going to lose in 2010 just because they have an R next to their name. I personally support Obama and his plan to restructure the economy, but I think republicans can take this as a referendum on Obama at least in republican districts and states. Alot can change in a year and a half.
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16
Murphy has moved out to a 252 vote lead. 87% of the precints have been counted.
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17
The final precinct counts are just in. Murphy-77,344. Tedisco-77,729.
There are approximately 6000 uncounted absentee ballots to be counted. -
18
Okay Sacred I did see that Murphy was indeed ahead at last count, you had me scared there for a second!
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The counts are Murphy - 77,344/Tedisco 77,279.
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A squeaker to be sure, I think this one goes to the absentees now.
- jnsmall Dems are about a psyched to fund the Afghan War as they are to pass global warming: http://tiny.cc/n1SfM - 37 minutes ago
- jnsmall Tonight I finished off the last of the turkey leftovers. As good as it was, I'll happily not eat turkey again for at least a month - 3 hours ago
- jnsmall Obama: Kaar-ah-chi. He's really hitting the native pronunciations. I dunno if this is 2 contrast w/ Bush (I-rahn) or 2 show he's worldly - 5 hours ago
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