Home › Blogs › chris faulkner's blog ›

Inside Scoop on NY 20

Submitted by chris faulkner on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 09:30
in

I am beat.

I walked precincts all day for Jim Tedisco and when the polls closed I thought I could head to the party…but then things went awry. In the next 13 days political communications will play as important a role as the legal fight and I want you to know the facts.

  • The election is NOT over. There are still over 4,000 absentee ballots that have not been returned which totaled with the 6,000 already received would be almost 10,000 absentee ballots that have NOT been counted. These ballots will continue to be accepted until April. 13th. ANY premature counting of votes will, basically, be counting BEFORE the voting is over…and that is just wrong.
  • Jim Tedisco is currently trailing Scott Murphy by 59 votes according to machine tallies. NOTICE I did not say ballots. NY 20 uses old school level machines to vote so there is NO "ballot" to count. Votes are tabulated on the machine as people pull levers. Most of these machines are probably older than me.
  • The results you saw tonight were nothing more than the UNofficial notes of whichever random poll worker transcribed results from the machine to the form that they report to the Board of Elections. It is fair to say that these numbers are often riddled with mistakes as people mix up numbers and read the wrong tallies.

With memories of Washington State 2004 and Minnesota 2008 looming in my mind here are some things to consider.

  • Jim Tedisco will win the absentee vote.
  • The only way Scott Murphy can win is too challenge and disqualify absentee and military ballots that will, most likely, be votes for Jim Tedisco.
  • Scott Murphy is so anti-military he tried to stop Harvard from having a ROTC program on campus while he was a student there and prevent military personnel from teaching classes. Knowing that, it is hard to imagine military members voting for him.

It's 3:23 AM so forgive the horrible grammar and even worse sentence structure.

Chris Faulkner

P.S. Somehow I knew wearing my "Coleman Recount Team" polar fleece today was a bad idea…

5
Your rating: None Average: 5 (1 vote)

Comments

Way to go Chris

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 09:44.

We will all be watching and hoping.

The democrats are already spinning this as a no lose situation for them:

-If Murphy wins itt's a great victory and further endorsement of the Obama agenda.

-If Murphy loses in a close race its still a victory and validation because it is a Republican district, even though Gillibrand won every county and had a 24 point margin on Obama's coat tails.

The fact that this race is this close is a stunning rebuke to Obama's actions as president so far.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2009/04/ny20_close_as_expected.html

 

Republicans registrations in NY-20 outnumber

Submitted by NextRightNando on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 09:53.

Republicans registrations in NY-20 outnumber Democratic registrations by 71,000. Tedisco is a major figure in the NY Republican party (minority leader in the Assembly).  His opponent is a complete unkown. And yet the vote appears to be along the same lines as the presidential elections.

So, please tell me how this adds up to a "stunning rebuke to Obama's actions as president so far"?

 

Because it was won by 24

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 09:55.

Because it was won by 24 points by a democrat in November. Duh.

Who was a very populuar incumbant

Submitted by NextRightNando on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 10:07.

Who was a very popular incumbent and who was running against a guy who faked his residency in the district.

This is a very Republican district. The fact that you are struggling to take it back now that Gillibrand is out of the way indicates how deep the Republican brand damage lies.

Can't be damaged that  much.

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 10:09.

Can't be damaged that  much. Looks like they may win this race.

They very well might.

Submitted by NextRightNando on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 10:40.

Tedisco might indeed win - it is obviously too close to call.

But what we are discussing is how this race works as a referendum on Obama's first two and half months in office. The presidential vote in this district was 51% Obama/48% McCain. The results of this special election will be  50%/50%.

So, again, how is a Repblican struggling to win an open seat in a heavily Republican district a "stunning rebuke" to the president?

no stunning rebuke of anyone

Submitted by Ray in TX on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 18:10.

It's a local race, no matter how politicians on the national level try to spin it.

No one can reasonably talk about a "rebuke" of Obama while his poll numbers are still very high.

Watch and learn.

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 18:52.

Watch and learn.

     Oops-double post.

Submitted by Lonestar Bill on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 09:46.

 

 

 Oops-double post. Sorry.

 

Double Post

Submitted by weslinder on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 13:19.

Delete

Tedisco Fighting the Libertarians

Submitted by weslinder on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 13:16.

It seems to me that the race tightened when Tedisco sued to keep the Libertarian Party candidate off the ballot.  He was leading by 15% or more before that.  When will Republicans learn that integrity and fairness is important?  People expect Democrats to cheat and stifle dissent.  They are good at it.  When Republicans do it, they cede the moral high ground, get called hypocrites, and usually get spanked.  Tedisco will probably still win, and he probably didn't learn his lesson, but the fact is that he lost a 15% lead to tax cheat by trying to suppress a candidate that would have taken 3% of the vote, at most.

Only thing about this race

Submitted by Ironman on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 19:34.

Is that based on the major local poll, Obama had a 65% favorable rating and Kirsten Gillibrand had a 76% favorable rating.  The major local paper, the Times Union  has been very pro-Obama and I think there still is a large "give him a chance" voter bloc among Northeastern moderates. And Gillibrand is the hometown girl made good.

With this tailwind (they both did public endorsements) Murphy still couldn't break free of the GOP moorings of the district.  

These factors aren't going to be very common in many swing districts in 2010. It may not even work here in the next cycle. Indeed, I suspect the bloom will be off the Obama rose even in the Northeast by then and Gillibrand may well lose her senate primary, and this will result in a large GOP vote upstate to punish the downstater who stole "their" senate seat.

I suspect in the passage of time this will be a huge lost opportunity for the Democrats. At the very least, no election certificate, no way to spin the mass media that Obama's been embraced. 

 I've got lots of other thoughts about what went right and wrong up in my wife's old stomping grounds, but they deserve a long blog post of their own, and I'm not ready quite yet to write it. 

NY20

Submitted by tomllewis on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 20:16.

Just a short note to thank you for all the work you did in NY20. I'm sorry I didn't get to meet you in person.

It's because of people like you, who care enough to get involved, that JIm Tedisco did so well in a district that has been trending more Democrat every year for the past 20 years. I remember when Gerry Solomon only got 51% in Saratoga Springs in 1996 how shocked many people were. And I think he only won the District with 53%.

Jim told me that the turnout (over 37%) was the largest in over a decade in the whole country for a Special Election.

I will be very very surprised if we don't overtake Murphy when the absentees are counted.

Your help is appreciated by many many people. 

"trending more Democrat"

Submitted by NextRightNando on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 20:39.

tomllewis - you say NY-20 is "a district that has been trending more Democrat every year for the past 20 years"

30 seconds on Google turned up the following numbers for congressional races in NY-20. 

  • 2008
  • D 61.8
  • R 38.2
  • 2006
  • D 53.1
  • R 46.9
  • 2004
  • R 65.8
  • D 33.7
  • 2002
  • R 73.3
  • D 24.0
  • 2000
  • R 57.6
  • D 40.1
  • 1998
  • R 58.3
  • D 38.8
  • 1996
  • R 57.1
  • D 37.6

Care to explain how you interpret this data as indicating that the district has been trending more Democratic over several years?

Obviously, you want to develop the narrative that this result is the beginning of the Republican fight back. But why don't you be honest and say what it really is - a Republican struggling to win an open seat in a district where the Republicans have an advantage of more than 71,000 in voter registrations, and which went Republican in 5 of the last 7 elections?

that's lame even for you, NRN

Submitted by Ironman on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 21:23.

The results from 2002 and 2004 were because John Sweeney was running virtually uncontested. On the other hand, Gillibrand in 08 faced a guy who spent millions and crushed him almost as badly as the placeholder Democrats who faced Sweeney in his heyday.

(Sweeney's 02 and 04 opponents spent a total of $42K; that's gonna work in a sprawling district; not)

I suppose you didn;t see the poll results in the district presently. Considering Gillibrand with 73% favorable appeared in lots of Murphy TV ads and the registration edge doesn';t look that forbidding. (It also muted attacks on Murphy as a wild eyed lefty; no one thinks that of Gillibrand after the Village Voice types have had at her)

This is a Republican oriented district, but on the federal level, it's also the sort of "swamp yankee" district where DC Republicans have been facing a more skeptical audience.

NRN, explain TX 20 or wherever. I think others have a better handle on NY 20. 

How many Republicans get to run "virtually uncontested"

Submitted by NextRightNando on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 09:19.

How many Republicans get to run "virtually uncontested" in a district that is trending more Democratic?

Ironman, I think you'll find the rules of logic apply everywhere, even in the areas where you think you and only you are entitled to comment upon.

So I'll repeat the facts: open seat. >70K advantage in registrations. major state GOP figure vs. unkown. NRCC outspent DCCC $800,000 to $575,000.

Result - statistical tie.

Compared to the presidential vote in December, you've improved your position by 1%.

Let the Spin Begin!!

Submitted by Jim Dandy to th... on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 21:52.

Politico had it right:for a change this morning:  "No Winners, One Loser".  That loser would be the GOP.

Murphy was outspent here by over a million dollars in a sleepy upstate NY district no one would ever care about except for Gillebrand being called to the Senate.  The radio and local TV has been nonstop Tedisco ads running every 5 minutes for the past week.  Faulkner and other operatives here have been canvassing like crazy for days.

Why? 

Because the NRCC, Chairman Steele, and the National GOP understand this is a contest that can provide them with the fresh energy that is so desperately lacking, as the GOP crawls towards 2010 like an old amateur prizefighter going to his corner on all fours at the end of a tough round where he was saved by the bell.

Win or lose, it turned out hardly the image of rebirth, confidence and dominance in GOP strongholds that Steele and the GOP needed.

Instead, they will be forced to spend even more scarce GOP dollars, maybe a whole lot of them, paying for already-filed lawsuits and expert legal teams and per diems and God knows what other expenses, especially if this goes past the local Courts.

Tedisco had a 20-point advantage over Murphy not that long ago.  Tedisco had a huge advantage in name recognition, decades of local machine experience, decades of Albany and Dist 20 Media contacts, 70k plus lead in GOP registration, cash on hand.

The DRCC had almost written this race off as soon as Hillary accepted the SecState offer, sending Murphy only token money and telling him if he could turn it around MAYBE they would throw him a little something near the end.  Obama never visited the District, never sent more than token support until the last week of the campaign.

Bottom line is the Democratic Party will welcome Scott Murphy if he wins.  And if he wins it will be a major, major disappointing loss for the GOP.

But if Tedisco squeaks out a disputed win, it's no big deal in Congress.   It has little effect on the House strength or the agenda of Nancy Pelosi and the Dems.

But not to Tex or the Ironman, lol. 

Way to "drive the media narrative".

 

For once, I'm going to agree with NRN

Submitted by section9 on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 11:01.

Tedesco should have won this race by three points. That he didn't points to the galactic incompetence of the NRCC and their hideous commercials. There's a reason why people in the grassroots are giving their money and their time to Sarah Palin's PAC,

However, bear in mind: had this race occurred last week, Murphy probably would have won outright. It didn't.  Instead, Tedesco came back and pulled even, and probably pulled it out in the absentees.

The point that NRN makes is clear: this is a district in which Republicans hold a 70,000 vote edge in registration. It should have been won outright. Where was any kind of turnout apparatus? Jim Tedesco is a good candidate who deserved better support from his national party.

Displays of incompetence like this is why people at the grassroots don't take the National Party seriously and don't look to Washington for the future of the GOP. This is all to the good, by the way, because Left Activists are obsessed with Washington. It's all they know. Tomorrow's solutions won't come from there, however.