Posts Tagged ‘Scott Murphy’

The special election in NY-20 will hinge on the estimated 10,000 absentee ballots that will be counted over the next two weeks.   Election day voting had Democrat Scott Murphy leading Republican Jim Tedisco by a mere 65 votes out of 154,000 cast.  Given that a large number of the 10,000 to be counted are military voters, it is very likely that Tedisco will end up the winner.

This is a huge, huge victory for Republicans.  Democrats were unified in their message that they won a moral victory with Murphy being ahead and keeping it very close, but that spin belies the facts of recent history.  Now-Senator Kristin Gillibrand won the 2008 election by double digits despite the Republican spending $6 million trying to unseat her.  Obama carried the district by three points in the last election, and in previous elections, Democrats Elliot Spitzer and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton did as well.  This was the Democrats to lose, and lose they will.

This sends a shot across the bow of President Obama and Congressional Democrats, because this race was in essence a referendum on the young Presidency of Obama and on the Democrat Congress.

The most instructive quote of the night came from NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions:

“Less than 150 days ago, President Obama carried New York’s 20th District, and former Congresswoman Gillibrand was handily reelected in this district by a margin of 62-38 percent, despite the fact that her Republican opponent spent $6 million trying to defeat her.  For the first time in a long time, a Republican candidate went toe-to-toe with a Democrat in a hard-fought battle over independent voters. This was hardly a common phenomenon in 2008, particularly in the Northeast.”

History of Recent Elections in NY-20:

•    President Obama carried the district by a margin of 51%-48% in 2008.
•    Kirsten Gillibrand won re-election in 2008 by a margin of 62%-38% against a challenger who spent $6 million.
•    Eliot Spitzer carried the district by a margin of 57%-36% in 2006.
•    Chuck Schumer carried the district in 2004, as did Hillary Clinton in 2006.

Tuesday, March 31 is a big, big day in politics this year.  Why, you ask? It is the special election for Rep. Kristin Gillibrand’s seat that she vacated to ascend to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in New York.

“NY-20” is going to be a critical touchstone for months to come as we go into next year’s mid-term elections.  This is a Democrat seat, and the Democrat’s have pulled out all the stops to keep it in their column.  President Barack Obama has now weighed in, and both parties have major get-out-the-vote operations in place, with phone banks both in New York and D.C., and even some remote volunteer phone banks in other states.

This is an absolute must-win for the Democrats – because it will be seen as a litmus test on the Democrat Congress and on President Obama.  If the Democrat candidate, Scott Murphy, doesn’t get elected, the shockwaves will be felt from San Francisco to New York to D.C. and everywhere in between.

In some ways, the Republicans couldn’t be in a better spot.  If Republican Jim Tedisco wins, the momentum will have shifted less than 100-days into Obama’s administration.  If Tedisco loses, but keeps it close (within 5 points) it will still have a lasting impact on the way the Democrats in the House and President Obama play their cards (including “card check”) going into 2010.  For Republicans, this is a win-win, as long as a “loss” is close.

Murphy has some problems that are unique to this time – he’s been a lobbyist for Wall Street and he was an executive with an internet company that lost millions of dollars and later approved big bonuses for executives (sound familiar?).  AIG is a central issue in this campaign.  Here is how the NRCC has framed the issue:

This will be one of the biggest elections this year – it may be even more important than the Virginia’s Governor’s election this fall.  One thing for sure, the Democrats know the risk of losing, and they have doubled-down.