NY-20: Results Thread #2


610 of 610 Precincts Reporting
CandidatePartyVotesPercent
Scott Murphy(D)77,34450.02%
Jim Tedisco(R)77,27949.98%

RESULTS: Associated Press | PostStar.com | Albany Times-Union

10:46PM: I’d just like to remind folks that there were 5907 absentee ballots in the kitty as of March 30th, and more will follow. This race is far from being decided.

10:40PM (David): Actually, our sources were misinformed – it was folks at the AP taking a ganja break. Saratoga County has posted all 188 precincts here – Tedisco picked up 16 votes, leaving a final margin of 65 in Murphy’s favor. Overtime!

10:33PM: SSP sources at the NYSBoE inform us that the counting of the ballots for the lone outstanding precinct will not be finalized until Saratoga County officials finish their ganja break.

10:24PM: One piddly precinct left, and Murph leads by 81 votes. Lordy.

10:18PM: With three fonkin’ precincts outstanding in Saratoga, Murphy leads by 250 votes. It’s entirely possible that Murphy could “win” tonight, but lose once the 6000 absentee votes are tallied up in the coming days.

10:14PM (David): Holy smokes, Batman! Scott Murphy is now just 30 votes behind.

10:12PM: Tedisco is up by about 100 votes now, with outstanding precincts in Columbia (Murph-friendly) and Saratoga (‘Disco-inclined).

9:57PM: Time for a fresh new thread. Tedisco now leads by about 1100 votes with 505 precincts in.

191 thoughts on “NY-20: Results Thread #2”

  1. It’s going to be hard for Murphy to overcome a 1000+ vote deficit. Anyone who knows more about NY-20 think of anyway Murphy could still win?

  3. Just because I’m usually 90% wrong all the time, just to see if it’ll help Murphy. But agreed, it’s not looking good with a 1000 vote deficit with only about 18% of polls not yet reporting.

  4. Murphy has netted like 600 votes there so far, so it’s very possible he nets another 1200 or so.  Using a similar rule, we can expect to lose another couple hundred votes when the last half of Dutchess reports.  Then it’s just up to Saratoga.  Murphy just needs to narrowly win the last 33 precincts there, which he may very well do, he has been improving in Saratoga the whole night.

  6. The fate of [upstate NY] rests in the hands of [Columbia county]…

    1/3 of the vote in in Columbia, with a 500 vote Murphy advantage.  If that holds or widens, and Saratoga holds or tightens, and the 10k absentees (who consist, one hopes, entirely of left bank Paris expats) come in favorably, then Murphy’s in like Flynn.

  9. since special elections usually break for the opposition party and he had higher name recognition in the district’s population base.

    My prediction is Tedisco “wins” tonight but isn’t declared the winner yet. Absentees could still swing this if there are enough of them (remember Alaska, anyone?).

  10. Saratoga and Columbia precincts will have to favor Murphy overwhelmingly to win this. What a bummer, what really killed him was his inability to rack up more votes in Reneslauer and just get with in the 53-46 range in Sarasota, which, it appears, really showed out today for their long time leader.

    I’m angry though. I still thought Muprhy had surged enough on his own to win this but Democrats have been utterly lackluster ever since winning the election, ceding seats left and right beginning with Fleming beating Carmouche in LA-04. Republicans made keeping both those seats top priority, and this one especially they marked as ground zero, the RNC went in big, the third party groups, the NRCC went in, the big stumpers, everything. The DNC did hardly anything, Obama didn’t bother to get until last minute, despite the fact he’s popular in this area, and he didn’t cut an ad or hold a rally for him like Bush did when he was popular. Democrats were like, “Okay, we can affrd to lose this.”

    Great fight Murphy. But it will be a lot harder to defeat Tedisco later.

    A shame, the margin is small enough to where Obama probably could have saved the seat with a rally to boost Democratic turnout. Two hours for a congressional seat. Hmm, hmm.

  12. If the margins in Columbia, Delaware and Saratoga hold Murphy will lose another 33 votes. Mostly beacuse of the remaining Saratoga stuff.

    Gain: 1069 from Columbia

    Lose: 218 from Delaware and 1184 from Saratoga. Of course if they don’t follow the trend from previous results in that county it could be different. Also 5,900 absentee ballots means we can have a fun court fight and recount over this!

    National Republicans outspent national Democrats by 200k. The DCCC comes out of this looking foolish. They went all out in IL-14, MS-01 and LA-06 and gained momentum beacuse of it. This time they held back “beacuse it was a tough district” and it looks like all the money they did spend will be for naught.  

  14. With approximately 5900 absentee votes, it is going to be hard to make up the current deficit.

    1000 vote deficit – Murphy needs them to break 58-42

    1200 vote deficit – 60-40

    1500 vote deficit – 63-37

    2000 vote deficit – 67-33

  15. Deleware, Clombia and Saratoga remain.

    This is not over, but I have this sinking feeling reminding my of LA-4 hanging over my head.

  19. Can the eight outstanding precincts in Columbia counteract the nine outstanding precincts in Saratoga?

  21. by my calculations, with 3 Saratoga and 8 Columbia precincts left:

    Tedisco – 75,472

    Murphy – 75,412

    It’s not over.

  27. Columbia came in much bigger for Murphy than I expected, and the last Delaware precincts were solid too!  Those last Saratoga precincts better be a college town!

  30. 250 vote lead with just 3 Saratoga precincts left and absentees. Murphy has been winning the last few dozen precincts there, (that’s why his margins moved up so much), maybe he can carry it through.

  36. With 3 precincts left in Saratoga.

    Settle in, folks. This is gonna be a longgg court battle.  

  38. SCOTT MURPHY IS WINNING BY 252 VOTES WITH ONLY THREE PRECINCTS REMAINING IN SARAGOTA.

    WOW!

    We might win this one!

  41. All the ups and downs certainly make for an exciting evening. What other obsession can give you the feeling of Christmas morning and impending execution in the space of one night?

  50. that it’s one precinct left in Tedisco’s biggest vote base? Are they fixing this somehow?

    Tin foil hat removed: looks like the absentees will decide this. I know absentees helped in Alaska, but is the same true in upstate NY? They might skew elderly and wealthy there.

  51. I don’t know NY election procedures, so not sure about a few things

    1. Are any absentee ballots included in this total, or will they all be counted in the coming days?  (And which party do we think had the better absentee ballot field operation?)

    2. How does NYS deal with provisional ballots?

    3. What about the issue of overseas/military ballots that Justice and NYS agreed to extend the deadline for receiving ballots? When will those be in?

    4. Obviously we’re in potential recount territory here…. what is the timeline and procedure for a recount in New York?

  52. Murphy +65

    Surreal.

    That’s 0.042% of the total.  If Tedisco wins absentees by 1.1%, he wins the election.

  54. Anyone in the NY-20, whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent, who didn’t vote because “It wouldn’t have mattered” should be kicked in the balls (or, for the ladies, an appropriately painful area).

  58. I do believe I get some braggin’ rights : )

    (Not that it took any particular degree of insight to predict this sucker was gonna go down to the absentees)

  61. I don’t care how many absentee ballots are left to count. We are AHEAD, and I am going to celebrate because I thought it was all over about an hour and a half ago.

  62. You could have put this one away with just a little more effort if you hadn’t been so concerned about the repercusions of losing it.

  64. and then read my son to bed before i read these threads.  people all said the same thing on the cazayoux special (oh i knew we were gonna lose, it’s done, can we get all the people who were involved in this and shoot them?)

    it really isn’t over till it’s over and while traditionally absentees have favored republicans. they did not in 2008.

    we’re back to the question: who is more motivated?  and we’re back to my answer:  i don’t know.

  66. For those not familiar with NY – first know ‘recounting’ is not really an option here- all votes are on the old mechanical machines and all that can be done is to reread them.  However, the totals the BOEs post are rarely accurate.  I have been involved in several local and county wide races that changed in the days after election night.  the postings you see are all via phone ins – and there are several places for inaccuracies – that is why you saw some vote total changes near the end.  over the next couple of days the tally sheets from the poll workers will go into the boe and then the posted totals checked and changed where necc. the real battle is going to be over the absentee and provisional ballots which wont be counted for several days from now. and will be fought out in each county’s boe.  We had a state senate race that wasn’t decided until Feb in the nyc burbs a few years ago – and it was all contained in one county.  don’t expect this to end any time soon. Murphy is going to need volunteers in each county board to help with the research and to watch over the process.  

  67. The last polls were done like a week ago and had Murphy up a few points.  Hopefully that means he was peaking then and those ballots in the mail reflect that.

  68. can arrive as late as April 13th if I’m counting right.

    This will be a long fight folks.  

  69. 158,000 voters for a special election is major turnout. We definitely got our voters out…but so did the Republicans.

    One thing we have to do is NEVER ASSUME they won’t come out.  

  70. what they wanted out of this. If they win eventually, there will be no dramatic context of an election day count.  

  73. it’s still pretty amusing to me that Republicans have difficulty expanding beyond 3 out of 29 congressional seats in New York.  It’s not like Democrats gerrymandered it either when Pataki was governor and Republicans held the state Senate.

    And here’s a laugh for all of you, remember Tedisco’s internal he released showing him up 21%?

  75. According to Crisitunity’s benchmarks, Murphy met or exceeded the minimum performance in every county but one, Saratoga, the largest county in the district.  He was 4% under there, which is a big deficit to overcome.  He did it by exceeding the benchmarks in six counties including Washington (7%), Warren (6%), and Delaware (3%).    

  78. Here is what I found from NY DailyNews reporter Liz Benjamin (at http://www.nydailynews.com/blo…

    She said: “As of yesterday evening, the board had canvassed the 10 counties in the 20th and discovered that 10,055 absentee ballots had been issued by seven counties and 5,906 had been returned….Of the 10,055 absentees, the Repubicans have a roughly 600-ballot edge, according to the board. But of the 5,906 received to date, 798 more came from Republicans.”

    For a district that is generically repubican with a 75k voter reg edge, there doesn’t appear to be a big advantage for Tedisco in the absentees. So while it can still turn out differntly, it does not appear that the GOP has an edge in the absenttees.  

  79. whoever comes off better in the next couple of weeks will win round 2, which is only 19 months away.

    Murphy should come out right now and declare no court challenge if he loses.

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