RSS Feed MenuWhat a difference two weeks make. As the special congressional election in NY-20 enters its twilight, things may no longer go as once heavily hoped or expected by the GOP.
On the evening of March 31, 2009 in upstate New York, after the polls had closed and the ballots had been counted, things looked very good for Republican candidate Jim Tedisco. Even though he was down by about 60 votes, his campaign’s inner circle beamed with confidence while many Democrats went to bed in dismay. Between the imminent machine recanvassing and reception of absentee ballots, the general feeling was, as his spokesman Adam Kramer told me, that “Jim will win.”
After the recanvassing of all ten counties’ voting machines was completed nearly two weeks ago, it was revealed that if every vote had been correctly recorded on 3/31, then Tedisco would have actually prevailed on election night by a total of 68 votes. With the prospects of a large military turnout for the GOP and a strong showing by out-of-district Republicans from Tedisco hotbed Saratoga County, all seemed to be going just as anticipated.
And then the absentee ballots actually began getting counted, and things began to look up for Democratic new kid on the block Scott Murphy.
County by county, the results would show Republicans failing to meet the Tedisco team’s initial expectations. Their much hoped-for “miracle” in Saratoga County’s absentee pool never materialized. “Enough Republicans just didn’t come home,” a Tedisco staffer told me.
The much-anticipated military ballots (of the less than expected number that were returned on time) underperformed for the GOP as the federal ballots (voters on vacation, out of the country, ex-pats, etc.) over-performed for Murphy. While military voters went approx. 70:30 in favor of Tedisco, the remaining overseas voters supported Murphy roughly 60:40. This was not good news for Republicans at all.
Having been shoved to the ground, the Tedisco campaign’s strategy for “clawing” their way back to their feet was to challenge every ballot they could, more of which have since been challenged by them than Murphy’s team. Historically, most challenges end up getting ruled “erroneous” and thus the contested ballots get tallied after all.
Overall, it’s now becoming clear that even though those actually living in the district ultimately supported Jim Tedisco, the out-of-district absentees have ended up crippling, not catapulting, his race to Capitol Hill.
The latest tally shows Murphy besting Jim by 264 votes, the Democrat’s biggest lead since Election Day. Approximately 1,300 decided ballot challenges from now, we should have an even more obvious answer as to who’ll be the ultimate victor. I’ve been assured that the NRCC will keep the fight going until every vote is counted and, more importantly, every rightfully contested ballot is thrown out.
More than 700 ballots were challenged in Saratoga County, which Tedisco owns by about 5,000 votes. According to my old mentor and current Chairman of the Saratoga County Republican committee, Jasper Nolan: “We’ve got to hope that these contested ballots will lean our way … I’m not out of the realm of thinking that it’s no-shot — I’m cautiously optimistic.”
krove // Apr 17, 2009 at 3:12 pm
It’s all over bar the shouting (frivolous appeals all the way to the Supreme court).Tedisco has challenged about 70% of the absentee democratic area ballots. So a district with a GOP built in 70,000 majority is going to a mainstream Democrat. A Democrat who ran on the Stimulus package.So where does that leave the GOP and Steele? Nowhere. I guess some solace can be gained from the fact the result can be delayed and id distant from the actual vote.
Sigfraud // Apr 17, 2009 at 4:11 pm
The potential rematch is only 19 months off. Tedisco should be putting forward an image of magnanimity, not challenging every ballot in sight. He can spend the next year and half hammering Murphy when he votes with Pelosi and try again. Look at Cazayoux…
krove // Apr 17, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Tedisco has now asked his pet judge to declare him the winner of the election even though he is down in the count and all the ballots have jet to be opened.What is it with these people Coleman and Tedisco. Sore losers or what?
krove // Apr 17, 2009 at 5:20 pm
With all of the unchallenged absentee and overseas military ballots counted, Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 273 votes and looks in extremely strong position to prevail in the New York special election.Murphy has 79,839 votes, while Tedisco has 79,566 votes.Fueling Democratic optimism is the source of the 1,773 ballots that have been challenged by both campaigns, and left out of the current count. According to a database provided by the Murphy campaign, the plurality of those challenged ballots were cast by registered Democrats.Of the 1,773 ballots not included in the count, 810 were cast by registered Democrats, 653 were from registered Republicans and 310 were from independent or unaffiliated voters. That registration breakdown makes it nearly impossible for Tedisco to overcome his 273-vote deficit. Registered Democrats overwhelmingly voted for Murphy in the election, so it’s fairly safe to conclude that Murphy will net additional votes as many of the challenged ballots get counted.Democrats also estimate that Tediscos campaign has objected to twice as many ballots across the district as Murphys campaign consistent with the registration patterns of the challenged ballots. So if most of these ballots end up in the count, expect Murphy to ultimately win by around 700-800 votes.
sinz54 // Apr 17, 2009 at 5:46 pm
krove: You should have cited the author of the material in your post: Josh Kraushaar, “The Scorecard,” http://www.politico.comYou didn’t write that stuff yourself.
ireign // Apr 17, 2009 at 7:22 pm
It seems your Skidmore professor was wrong. “While military voters went approx. 70:30 in favor of Tedisco, the remaining overseas voters supported Murphy roughly 60:40. ” I am surprised that there are that many non-military overseas voters in this district. In general, Democrats have been doing much better with absentee ballots in recent elections.
ottovbvs // Apr 18, 2009 at 6:18 am
Murphy’s won this as must be apparent to a blind man a galloping horse. Apparently Tedisco’s challenges are running at 75/25 or thereabouts including the PR disaster of challenging Gillibrand’s vote. Most of these challenges are going to be denied and Nate Silver, who ain’t very often wrong, estimates it will be Murphy by about 550 votes. This is one of these cases where a bit of graceful would seem appropriate. Dragging this out when they haven’t the remotest chance of winning just reinforces the anti democratic sore loser meme for a seat that isn’t going to make a dime’s worth of difference in Washington.
Chekote // Apr 18, 2009 at 7:25 am
Tedisco and the NRCC ran a terrible campaign. Now the GOP is against Wall Street? Do they realize that Wall Street is the economic engine that drives NY? The GOP trying to be populist is ridiculous. And it is time to stop the legal challenges and focus on developing an agenda that attracts the majority of voters.
A.B. // Apr 18, 2009 at 7:38 am
“People who actually live in the district.” Right, the votes of those soldiers living abroad shouldn’t count, they don’t have the courtesy or pride to live at home. I’m sorry to be blunt, but your flexible morality disgusts me. The RNC lost this race, and now I presume you will prolong the embarrassment as long as you possibly can.
mpolito // Apr 18, 2009 at 9:33 am
This whole election is truly overblown, folks. This district voted for Obama 51-48. It may have more registered Republicans, but it voted for Obama. So the Dems acting like this proves that a “solid red” district supports Obama is foolish. Again, let me remind you: this district voted for Obama.
sinz54 // Apr 18, 2009 at 11:26 am
Chekote: There are exceptions to every rule. In 2008, Wall Street proved to be the engine that drove the U.S. economy–and the entire global financial market–off a cliff.Populist anger among the electorate is understandable.But Republican politicians can’t do populist anger. They’re too tied to Wall Street, both philosophically and by campaign contributions. Republican populism comes off sounding as phony. (Except when backed by strong religious convictions, as in the case of Mike Huckabee.)It’s like liberal Democrats trying to wrap themselves in the Bible and Jesus, just to win elections.
Chekote // Apr 18, 2009 at 7:18 pm
SinzMay I respectfully recommend a book that explains what led to the current crisis? Meltdown by Thomas E. Woods. To say Wall Street was responsible is a bit simplistic.”They’re too tied to Wall Street, both philosophically and by campaign contributions. “Actually, Wall Street support Democrats more than Republicans.
ireign // Apr 19, 2009 at 7:42 am
Chekote-good point. Hedge funds, especially, give more to Democrats. Republicans probably should do more to regulate hedge funds as I don’t see some of these funds that short stock and then spread rumors to try and create problems with the company as philosophically tied in with the GOP. And from a political standpoint, it is kind of stupid for the GOP to support unpopular groups that give more to Democrats.
sinz54 // Apr 19, 2009 at 10:15 am
ireign: I agree with you 100% about hedge funds. Profiting by selling a company short, while smearing its good name and reputation to drive its stock down, is not what I call being pro-capitalist. And in a time of war (and America is still at war), such behavior could even be considered unpatriotic–if the company being targeted is important to our national defense, or if its collapse could damage the national economy.But derivatives need to be reregulated too. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act, passed by Congress in 2000, gutted the SEC’s power to regulate and oversee Credit Default Swaps (CDSs). Those were the derivatives that brought down AIG last summer.The co-sponsors of this Act in the Senate were: Gramm, Lugar, Fitzgerald, Hagel, Johnson and Harkin.Both hedge funds *and* derivatives need to be re-regulated.Chekote: The commercial banking industry (which moved into stock investing following the repeal of Glass-Steagall) contributes more to Republicans than Democrats:http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F03
mlindroo // Apr 19, 2009 at 10:33 am
> This whole election is truly overblown, folks. This district > voted for Obama 51-48. It may have more registered> Republicans, but it voted for Obama.Of course NY-20 is overblown since it’s just one congressional district so the outcome does not matter much, either way. But is NOT a good sign for Republicans since they will have to again start winning in districts such as this one in order to regain power. Also, (unlike the Dems) the GOP really invested heavily in NY-20. —Barack Obama may have won the district, but it is worth keeping in mind that Kristen Gillibrand’s predecessor John Sweeney had a comparatively high American Conservative Union lifetime rating (1999-2006) of 75 in 2006. In comparison, the ACU average for the entire GOP senate caucus in 2008 was 72! So I think merely shrugging and saying “it voted for Obama” (and overwhelmingly for Gillibrand who has a dismal ACU rating of 15.5 after two years in the House) won’t do. MARCU$
ottovbvs // Apr 19, 2009 at 12:58 pm
mpolito 4/18/2009 9:33 AM51 to 48 is a fairly narrow margin. I agree with Charlie Cook that a narrow win by either side meant that nothing had really changed since November 4. That said the GOP should have won this, Tedisco is a well know local who has sat in the NY legislature for 25 years, the GOP poured huge resources into the race and Murphy was an unknown that had never run for office before and ran on the stimulus and Obama. The GOP were confident they were going to win this until a couple of days before the election and boasting it was going to be a litmus test of approval for the president. And don’t anyone say they weren’t because I saw them saying it on CNN. It really just confirms what the polls tell us. The GOP is still in trouble. Tedisco should concede gracefully, it’s got to the stage where it’s doing the GOP more harm than good.
Bulldoglover100 // Apr 19, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I agree ottovbvs. We need to stop with the contesting to the last drop. It hurts our party and makes us a laughing stock. The situation in Minn. is horrid and latest polls show that if that election were held again today that Coleman would lose by close to 10% based on anger at their state going without representation all these months.
sinz54 // Apr 19, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Bulldoglover100: Don’t worry about the GOP being made a laughingstock. Except for us political junkies, nobody else in the nation is paying attention to NY-20 anyway.But a better reason for the GOP to fold, is just to stop throwing good money after bad. Even if they managed to finagle a win through manipulation of the vote counts, Tedisco’s election would be no more convincing a win than Bush’s was in 2000. The GOP has already lost the hope of a definitive Tedisco trouncing of Murphy which they could spin as a repudiation of Obama. So what do they hope to gain from this at this point?
HHomer // Apr 20, 2009 at 6:42 am
The strategy of habitually challenging voter registrations and votes cast and trying to win elections in the courthouse makes the GOP look undemocratic. A much better use of party funds would be actively registering new voters and putting resources into getting supporters to vote.Of course blatant voter fraud should be addressed, but this should be an exception. An elected representative that citizens regard as elected on a technicality has no authority.