Tag: Scott Murphy

Tonight is the deadline for candidates in the NY-20 special election to file their fundraising reports with the FEC for the period covering January 1st through March 11th. Now that both Democrat Scott Murphy and Republican Jim Tedisco have filed, let’s take a look at their hauls:

All numbers are in thousands, and “CoH” represents remaining cash on hand at the end of the reporting period.

Despite the assumption that Murphy would be able to use his deep pockets to build up a financial edge over Tedisco, Tedisco has dipped into his own family piggy bank in the form of a $200K loan, keeping this race at near financial parity. Of course, the money is still flowing in at a fast clip to both candidates; you can view the 48 Hour FEC notices filed by both Tedisco here and Murphy here (just look for links labeled “Form F6”) for more updates. These sums are also just a portion of the total expenditures in this race — both Dem and GOP-allied organizations are throwing down some serious scrilla here. We’ll take a closer look at these independent expenditures soon.

Following up on James’s post from last night (which gets my vote for funniest diary title of the year), it looks like the NRCC is putting its foot down and not letting Jim Tedisco go rogue. Tedisco has vowed to seize control of his message and run only positive ads in the remaining three weeks… not a bad idea, considering that one of the tidbits buried in the game-changing Siena poll from yesterday was that his negative ads were killing him. The poll found that Tedisco’s ads made 12% of voters more likely to back him, while 28% were less likely.

Not so fast, says the NRCC. They’re professionals, they know exactly what works based on their previous excellent track record, and are just going to keep running negative ads on Tedisco’s behalf, regardless of his ingratitude. According to NRCC spokesperson Ken Spain:

“The NRCC has an obligation to hold Scott Murphy accountable for the past he is trying to hide as a Wall Street executive whose actions represent everything that has gone wrong with our economy. We have no plans to shirk our responsibilities.”

(Cue footage of Tedisco pounding his head on his desk.)

Also today, as part of a somewhat smarter ad campaign, the Scott Murphy campaign rolled out a new ad starring the most popular person in NY-20 according to Siena: Kirsten Gillibrand, who sports a deity-like 78% favorable rating. (The ad doesn’t seem to be YouTubed yet, but you can see it at the Murphy website in the lower right corner.)

Siena College (3-9/10, likely voters, 2/18-19 in parentheses):

Scott Murphy (D): 41 (34)

Jim Tedisco (R): 45 (46)

Eric Sundwall (L): 1 (n/a)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Yesterday you may remember that the Scott Murphy camp came out with an internal poll showing a 7-point lead for Jim Tedisco, but I questioned whether the race was actually closer than that, given that the internal poll was more than two weeks old and the intervening weeks involved a lot of hammering on Tedisco for his inability to commit one way or the other to the stimulus package. I may have been on to something: Siena comes out with another poll (so finally we have some trendlines) of NY-20, and Murphy has shaved his previous 12-point deficit to 4.

As you can see from the trendlines, Tedisco is holding steady while Murphy is vacuuming up the undecideds. Tedisco also doesn’t seem to be impressing anyone new: his favorable/unfavorable is 49/30, which looks good on the surface, but two weeks ago he was at 47/20. (Murphy’s favorable/unfavorable is 40/25, up from 29/10, so his ad blitz is at least erasing his #1 problem, lack of name recognition.) The trajectory of the trendlines points to a very close race, and this being a special election, it’s likely to boil down to turnout, enthusiasm, and ground game.

This poll also breaks down the race by region within the district. Tedisco has a big edge in suburban Saratoga County, where he’s ostensibly from (he represents Schenectady in the state assembly, which is outside the district), while Murphy has a big edge in the district’s blue-collar northern counties (Murphy is from Glens Falls). The two are close in the Hudson Valley counties south of Albany, which looks to be the swing area where the real battle will be fought.

As I’m sure you’ve read elsewhere, this race is also turning into a bit of a behind-the-scenes referendum on RNC chairman Michael Steele. While I’m starting to look forward to winning this race, one unfortunate consequence of winning may be the end of the Steele chairmanship… which, at least in terms of driving the media narrative, has so far proven to be a much bigger gift to Democrats than one more seat in the House.

UPDATE: The RNC can read polls, too. They just transferred $100,000 to the New York GOP to buttress Tedisco’s campaign.

Benenson Strategy Group (D) (2-24/25, likely voters):

Scott Murphy (D): 37

Jim Tedisco (R): 44

Eric Sundwall (L): 4

(n = 400)

This is starting to look rather encouraging: never-before-elected venture capitalist Scott Murphy is within 7 points of state assembly minority leader Jim Tedisco in a Democratic internal poll in the race to succeed Kirsten Gillibrand in NY-20. Tedisco led by 21 in early February in his own POS internal and then by 12 in an independent poll in mid-February from Siena, so while there’s an apples and oranges problem here among pollsters, there’s an upward trajectory for Murphy as we approach the Mar. 31 special election.

One other observation: folks in the media are treating this poll as evidence that Tedisco’s hemming and hawing about voting for the economic stimulus package (and the ensuing broadside of criticism he received from the local papers’ editorial boards) hurt him. I’m sure that’s true. But look at the dates this poll was in the field: two and a half weeks ago, before Tedisco’s vacillations really started to define the race, and only a week after that Siena poll. I don’t know why they waited so long to release the poll, but given the age of this poll and intervening events, it’s quite possible that the real race is even closer. (Discussion is underway in conspiracy‘s diary.)

http://www.politico.com/news/s…

Beneson Strategy Group, 2/24-25, 400 LV

Tedisco 44

Murphy 37

Sundwall 4

Dated so it might be even closer now.

“Murphy, in his first run for elected office, has repeatedly attacked Tedisco over the Republican’s initial refusal to say how he would have voted on the stimulus package, which was approved in the House without a single GOP vote. Tedisco eventually said he would have voted for the bill “with amendments.”

But the controversy has allowed Murphy to cut into Tedisco’s once seemingly impregnable lead. Early polls had Tedisco up by 20-plus points, while a Siena Research Institute poll two weeks ago still had him holding a 12-point edge.”

Win this one and Repubs are seriously screwed. Oh and Michael Steele would get the chop.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com…

Time for the daily ganja break…

• NY-20: Scott Murphy snagged the Independence Party line for the March 31 special election – a good get, even though it didn’t help Sandy Treadwell much last fall. Meanwhile, both Tedisco and the NRCC are up on the air with negative radio and TV ads. The DCCC also hits back with its first ad, attacking Tedisco for stimulus-related waffling while defending Murhpy against back taxes charges.

• IL-Sen: Oh god – Roland Burris has rolled out a campaign website, complete with “Donate” link. Also, it should come as no surprise, but state treasurer (and Friend of Barack) Alexi Giannoulias made his interest official today, launching his exploratory committee. Meanwhile, Rep. Jan Schakowsky says she’ll jump in if there’s a special election, though she sounds leery about giving up her seat for a 2010 run.

• DC Voting Rights: Steny Hoyer has promised a House vote this week on the DC Voting Rights Act. The bill should pass the House easily, given that a prior version sailed through in 2007. The real issue will be whether the conference committee settles on an at-large or traditional district for Utah. (D)

• UT-Sen: Damn, Ken Jennings won’t run. Says Jennings: “I’ve decided to bow out of the election before even announcing, in order to spend more time with my family. (And when I say “with my family,” I mean, “screwing around on the Internet.”)” At least that’s an excuse we can all understand and accept. (D)

• Polltopia: Public Policy Polling once again is letting readers decide which Senate race they’ll poll next. The choices: Connecticut, Delaware, and Kentucky. (J)

• CA-Gov: Looks like John Garamendi, Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown, and Antonio Villaraigosa are all dead serious about running for governor in 2010; they all jointly appeared before the San Fernando Valley Democrats this weekend.

• OR-Gov: As DeFazio, Kitzhaber, Bradbury, et al. try to figure out who’s running, a dark horse may be sneaking past them: Portland City Councilor Randy Leonard, who may be able to count on substantial backing from organized labor.

Siena College (2/18-19, likely voters):

Scott Murphy (D): 34

Jim Tedisco (R): 46

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Here is the first public poll of the special election in NY-20 to replace Kirsten Gillibrand; compared with the Tedisco internal released a few weeks ago (which had Tedisco up 50-29), it shows Scott Murphy in a better position, although still in a pretty deep hole.

The good news is that Murphy, who has never held office before, is still little-known, giving him room to grow (his favorable/unfavorable is 29/10 with 61% undecided); Tedisco, by comparison, is much better known, although he’s viewed pretty favorably (47/20, with 34% with no opinion). The poll also asks an interesting question: whose endorsement will matter the most to you? The most common answer is Kirsten Gillibrand, who still maintains a stratospheric 75/15 favorability rating in the district. Gillibrand stumping in the district will go a long way toward helping Murphy here. Discussion is already underway in DTM,B!‘s diary.

New York Governor David Patterson has set the special election in NY-20 for March 31. Those two months are a pretty generous timeframe, but from the Dems’ standpoint, it’s necessary, to give candidate Scott Murphy some time to introduce himself to the district. (The self-funding Murphy hasn’t held elective office before.)

That timeframe also gives Jim Tedisco the chance to get better familiarized with the kinds of technology the kids are using these days. (After all, the new post-2008 GOP strategy appears to be “We’re going to do the exact same thing as before. Except now we’re going to use Facebook and Twitter.”)

Brownsox at Daily Kos has an amusing piece on how the tech-savvy, linked-in Tedisco has a feature on his website that front-pages everything from the #NY20 Twitter feed… including all the press releases coming from the DCCC’s blog, such as “Will Tedisco Finally Reimburse Taxpayers Over $21,000 for His 20-Minute Car Ride?” (Throw in Pete Hoekstra‘s little problems with constantly Twittering away his locations on his recent trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, and you’ve gotta wonder if the GOP would be better off just sticking with the tools they’ve already mastered: direct mail and AM radio.)

Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Jim Tedisco (2/3-4, registered voters):

Scott Murphy (D): 29

Jim Tedisco (R): 50

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NY-20 was always going to be a tough hold, despite the fact that it narrowly went for Obama over McCain, because of its historically Republican nature (as seen in the GOP registration advantage and the utter lack of a convincing Democratic bench). Although this is an internal poll from Tedisco’s camp, it pretty clearly shows what kind of a hole we’re starting in.

Complicating matters is the name recognition factor: Tedisco, as Assembly Minority Leader and someone with deep roots in nearby NY-21, sports a 51% favorable/13% unfavorable rating, while local businessman Scott Murphy has never held office before. Murphy’s one advantage is self-funding: he’s already amassed $600,000 cash on hand, including a $250,000 loan from himself. Which is good… if Murphy’s going to be competitive in this race, in the face of a relatively short timeframe, it’s going to have to be through a lot of paid media.