Last week's Democratic victory in New York's 26th District continued the party's special election winning streak in the state. And overseeing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the contest was the party's point man on the two previous Empire State special elections, Long Island Congressman Steve Israel.
During the past three years, winnable races in GOP-friendly districts in N.Y. have slipped out of Republicans' grasp, each one fueling next-day hand-wringing that mismanagement and failure to notice candidate flaws snowballed into a golden opportunity for Democrats.
Last week's Democratic victory in New York's 26th District continued the party's special election winning streak in the state. And overseeing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the contest was the party's point man on the two previous Empire State special elections, Long Island Congressman Steve Israel.
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Democrat Kathy Hochul scored an upset victory last night in a solidly Republican western New York district, and Democrats are now loudly proclaiming the salience of the Medicare issue on the results. We've been covering this race for months now - and anticipated a close race back in April when few considered it competitive -- and here's our rundown of the top lessons to be learned from the results: In a surprise decision, Republican Sharron Angle announced she will not participate in the upcoming special election in Nevada's 2nd District. "Current outcomes concerning the special election have made this election in Nevada an illegitimate process that disenfranchises the electorate," Angle said in a statement. "Clearly, no solution that the Supreme Court can make will correct the injury to free and open elections caused by ambiguous laws and subsequent lawsuits." After months of hand-wringing, finger-pointing and attack ads, Election Day is here in New York's 26th District. The election skyrocketed to national prominence as Democrat Kathy Hochul began pressing Republican Jane Corwin over Rep. Paul Ryan's, R-Wis., budget that would revamp Medicare, but there's also the presence of third-party candidate Jack Davis, a former Democratic nominee for the seat now running as a tea party candidate, complicating the race. Polls opened this morning in the Buffalo/Rochester area at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. We'll keep you posted throughout the day and when results begin coming in right here at Hotline On Call. Democrat Kathy Hochul has upset Republican Jane Corwin in a special election to fill the seat of former Rep. Chris Lee, R-N.Y., in a race that became something of a referendum on the GOP budget plan that revamps Medicare. With 74 percent of precincts reporting, the AP called the race for Hochul. Hochul has tallied 48 percent of the vote to Corwin's 42 percent. Independent candidate Jack Davis is winning eight percent, running on a third party line. This wasn't supposed to happen.
Just six months ago, Republicans had won control of the House and picked up 63 seats - with six of those (more than any other state) coming from New York. But then on February 9, Western New York Rep. Chris Lee (R) swiftly resigned after a gossip site posted shirtless photos the married lawmaker had sent in response to a Craigslist personal ad. Democrat Kathy Hochul has taken a four-point lead over Republican Jane Corwin ahead of Tuesday's closely-watched special congressional election in New York, according to a Siena College poll released Saturday. Hochul leads Corwin among likely special-election voters, 42 percent to 38 percent in the Empire State's normally Republican-leaning 26th Congressional District, where GOP plans to privatize Medicare have become a central issue in a campaign that's proven an unexpected boon to the western New York district's struggling economy -- in the form of millions of dollars in campaign expenditures from the national parties and outside interest groups. Both House campaign committees raised roughly $4 million in April, but the National Republican Congressional Committee had a $4 million cash on hand advantage over Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at the end of the month, according to monthly Federal Election Commission reports filed Friday.
The NRCC ended the month with $9.6 million cash on hand, compared to the DCCC's $5.53 million in the bank. The GOP's cash on hand is more than twice what they had at this point in 2009 as they headed into the 2010 midterms. Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen conceded Thursday in the special election in California's 36th District after updated ballot totals showed Republican Craig Huey with an insurmountable lead for the second spot in a July runoff.
Democrat Janice Hahn finished first in balloting and had already secured a place in the July 12 runoff. But after Tuesday's all-party primary between 16 candidates, Huey only led Bowen by 206 votes. After 10,327 additional ballots were counted though, Huey's lead expanded to 750, with only 200 left to count by Friday. A Nevada District Court judge has sided with the state Republican party in their lawsuit over ballot rules in the special election in Nevada's 2nd District, ruling that parties should be allowed to nominate their own candidates, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
The decision overturned Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller's determination earlier this month that all qualifying candidates would run on the same ballot. The special election is scheduled for September 13. |
Jessica TaylorNon-partisan political analyst Archives
January 2013
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