RSS Feed MenuDavid Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, orchestrated a blogburst for the Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, in New York’s 23rd congressional district race yesterday. Stacy McCain did a roundup of the messaging here, but the gist of his post is that Dede Scozzafava is going to run into trouble in the weeks ahead.
Considering that nobody is releasing any new numbers, and Hoffman is asking for money and insanely risky high-profile endorsements at the same time, I’m deeply skeptical. That being said, my biggest fear in this race is a plurality victory for the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens. If that happens, the New York Conservative Party will blame the New York Republican Party, and vice versa. My view is that the possible recriminations from this race would be deeply damaging to two very important New York institutions, at a time that a deeply troubled state needs both.
UPDATE: The Siena poll just came out. Dede Scozzafava is doing worse than I thought, so, yes, she is running into trouble. I was wrong there, but the rest stands.
Also, Jim Geraghty at National Review is thinking along the same lines: This isn’t shaping up well for the GOP or for the Conservative Party.
joemarier // Oct 15, 2009 at 12:58 pm
UPDATE: Numbers! About what I expected: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2009/10/ny-23_poll_owens_d_takes_lead.html
A Call to Arms? | Republicans United. // Oct 15, 2009 at 4:46 pm
[...] Thomas Marier notes that Dede Scozzafava, the GOP candidate for the 23rd Congressional District is now behind Democrat Bill Owens in the polls. It could be that all the attention by the hard right to support Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Hoffman has no chance on winning, but far right conservatives are working hard to support Hoffman and sink Scozzafava’s campaign for not being “conservative” enough. [...]
ottovbvs // Oct 16, 2009 at 9:37 am
……The big mystery at the moment is why Republicans think they are riding some sort of wave for next fall……..it’s a complete fantasy as this latest congressional graph from Pollster indicates……and by next summer with the economy in full recovery mode and all those campaign ads with clips of Republicans railing against the recovery bill?
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/10-us-house-genballot.php
montee // Oct 16, 2009 at 11:44 am
its a pity the leadership tried to pre-empt having an open honest discussion about the picking of a candidate.instead they chose to shove a candidate who to be honest does not match up to real republican principles and bear the least resemblance to the rep that they would be replacing (i.e McHugh). the evidence shows that at the very best the GOP establishment didnt do enough ground work before picking Scozzafava (such as reaching a compromise with Hoffman and other party faithful who might be upset and cause trouble) or at worst ignored the wishes of its own rank file (people present within the district) of whom whatever they might think of them are the backbone of the party. next time when the GOP establishment wants to pull these stunts they should ensure they cover their bases. but well considering Steele cant even launch a website without embarassment I am not very hopeful (no wonder we got thumped in 06 and 08).
sinz54 // Oct 16, 2009 at 12:36 pm
ottovbs: this latest congressional graph from Pollster indicates
Because that chart of aggregate national preferences doesn’t take into account how districts and states are apportioned votes.
Look at this chart of winning margins in Congressional districts, courtesy of FiveThirtyEight.com:
http://tinypic.com/r/2emej47/4
Because minority groups (blacks and Hispanics) tend to be apportioned together by gerrymandering into districts that are strongly minority, there is an excess of Dem votes there for any Dem candidate. It doesn’t matter whether that Dem wins with 55% of the vote or 80% of the vote–he still wins and it’s still just one seat in the House. (Serrano won with a 43% Dem margin–but most of those votes are wasted since he would have won anyway with a lesser margin.) There are fewer districts where the GOP holds an excess of votes. (Cannon won with the biggest GOP margin–26%–but that’s less than Serrano’s 43%.)
Because there are many more districts with a huge excess of Dem votes than there are districts with a huge excess of GOP votes (due to apportionment of minority votes), the aggregate national vote can be roughly split between the Dems and GOP–and still the GOP will win decisively.
Thus, as FiveThirtyEight.com points out, the national aggregate voter preferences are worthless. They don’t map onto how House districts are apportioned. We don’t have “one man, one vote” in this country. We have gerrymandering.
Now let’s take a look at past national aggregate preferences:
http://tinypic.com/r/2vsqdti/4
Notice that in 1994, the polls had the GOP and Dems roughly even (in fact, the Dems seemed to have a slight lead just before Election Day). But the GOP, as you know, swept both houses of Congress. That’s again due to the fact that generic preferences don’t take into account apportionment.
Conclusion: Because of gerrymandering in the House, and because in the Senate a tiny state gets the same number of senators as a huge state, the generic polls will understate the GOP vote. Since the GOP vote tends to be concentrated in smaller districts and states.
The situation is even more exaggerated in the Senate. The populous states like California have a huge excess of Dem votes–but California still only gets 2 senators. Sparsely populated states, whose votes barely show up at all in aggregate national polls, can still lean GOP.