Tag: NY-20

Many have been wondering if and when the party committees would dive into the special election to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in the House. Well, the wait appears to be over, as the DCCC has just purchased a block of TV ad time set to start tomorrow. From Roll Call:

According to knowledgeable sources, the buy is scheduled to start on Friday and continue through March 31, the date of the special election. Specific details about the size of the DCCC’s buy are not yet known. The committee previously was on the air with a radio ad.

On Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee went on the air with about 1,200 gross ratings points of television ads on broadcast and cable in the Albany media market, which covers the majority of the district.

In the battle of managing expectations, both committees have something at stake here. Democrats obviously would like to retain this seat (though its loss would hardly hinder the ability of the super-sized Democratic caucus to push through legislation in the House). For the NRCC, this seat is pretty close to a must-win; they’ve started off the race with the advantages of having a relatively clean recruit with high name recognition in an ancestrally Republican district, while Democrats have had to start from scratch with venture capitalist Scott Murphy — his Wall Street ties already being the subject of Republican attack ads. If Tedisco loses this one, the NRCC will have no excuses.

• NY-20: The Troy Record, one of the major papers in the district, calls out GOP candidate Jim Tedisco in an angry editorial for not living in the district and for sticking to the Republican negative campaigning playbook.

• OK-Gov: Former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts says he’s weighing a run for governor and will make a decision in 45 days. (Mark your calendars for April 17th.) But how will Watts, who made tentative pro-Obama noises last year, play in a GOP primary? (D)

• CA-19: More R-on-R fun: A wealthy Republican fundraiser in California is itching to recruit a primary challenger for GOP Rep. George Radanovich. Assemblyman Mike Villines might be interested. Radanovich’s district supported Bush by monstrous margins, but only went for McCain by 52-46 last year. (J) (UPDATE: Villines’ office writes in to say that he will be supporting Radanovich in 2010.)

• CA-Sen: Best wishes to Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who moved on to Republican politics and had been mentioned as a possible candidate against Barbara Boxer in 2010. She’s been diagnosed with breast cancer, which may put her political activism on hold.

• DC Voting Rights: The House vote on the DC Voting Rights Act has been pushed back until next week, as leadership figures out how to prevent the GOP from adding language that strips most of what remains of DC’s gun laws (after the Supreme Court partially struck them down last year).

• 2010 House: The Hill has a nice preview of some of the hot House races in two years, and candidates bubbling up to fill those slots.

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.

As you may recall, there will be no primary for the NY-20 special election to replace now-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The GOP has settled on carpetbagging Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco as their nominee. Meanwhile, the Dem county committees are interviewing six people:

• Suzy Ballantyne, Director of Governmental Affairs for the New York State AFL-CIO
• Tracy Egan, former tv news anchor
• Assemblyman Tim Gordon
• Ron Kim, Kim Commissioner of Public Safety in the City of Saratoga Springs
• Scott Murphy, Managing Director of Advantage Capital Partners
• Carol Schrager, attorney

Full bios are available here.  The Times Union says a decision could come as early as today.

UPDATE: The Dems have picked Scott Murphy. (Thanks, JFM110.) Also, here is Scott Murphy‘s website.

Roll Call is reporting that James Tedisco will be the GOP’s nominee in the special election to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in NY-20.

While no official announcement has been made yet, the Republican chairmen of the 10 counties that fall within the 20th district agreed to nominate Tedisco during a meeting Tuesday at state GOP headquarters in Albany.

Tedisco, the current minority leader in New York’s State Assembly, is a long-time player in Albany-area politics, in fact known as “Mr. Schenectady.” Wait… what’s that? Schenectady isn’t in the 20th?

The Democratic nomination is still completely up in the air, and the same Roll Call article comes up with a completely different list of names than we saw a few days ago. With over twenty potential names to choose from (none of which seem particularly top-tier), they’re looking at:

… former TV broadcaster Tracy Egan, venture capitalist Scott Murphy, state AFL-CIO official Suzy Ballantyne, and former New York Rangers goalie Mike Richter.

From Nathan Gonzales:

With Republican and Democratic candidates scrambling for position in the special election in New York’s 20th District, 2008 GOP nominee Sandy Treadwell is not jumping into the race, according to GOP sources.

Treadwell, who spent almost $6 million of his own money last cycle in his 61%-38% loss to Cong. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), expressed interest early on, and even released public statements saying as much, but will not ultimately throw his name into consideration. According to GOP insiders, he is currently out of the Empire State and is not making immediate moves toward another run.

I guess blowing through another $6 mil wasn’t such an appealing thought for Sandy in this economy. Then again, maybe this is the guy we would have wanted, given his abysmal 38% showing. Hell, Kieran Lalor did better in the 19th!

Nathan also tells us about who is in the running:

Meanwhile state Sen. Betty Little (R) who has already announced her candidacy. And according to the Albany Times-Union, the Saratoga County GOP has decided to back Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco and the Greene County GOP is with 2006 gubernatorial nominee John Faso.

With ten different counties covered by the district, this could get very interesting:

There will not be a primary for the special election, instead the party nominees will be chosen by a weighted vote among the county committees. Saratoga carries the most weight in the 10-county district.

Note that this applies to both sides – the Dems won’t have a primary, either (one of the worst aspects of New York’s often-cruddy election laws). So, apart from those of us on the ground in the 20th, we’re mostly gonna just have to hang tight here.

SSP’s Presidential Results by CD project continues to chip away at the outstanding districts left up on our big board, and I’m pleased to announce that today, thanks to the tireless efforts of SSP hero jeffmd and the lawyerly phone charm of DavidNYC, we now have complete data for New York’s newly-open 20th District.

Check it out:

Votes cast: 330,992

Obama: 167,827 (50.7%)

McCain: 157,879 (47.7%)

A traditionally GOP district, Bush carried the 20th by a 54-46 margin in 2004, and also smacked Al Gore by a 51-44 spread four years earlier.

That’s one more district that we can take down from our big board, but we still have plenty more to go. If you enjoy the work that this project has produced, please consider lending a hand by calling county offices to inquire about obtaining precinct data. We can do this thing, but we need more people to participate in lightening the load. More details are available here.