When Kristen Gillinbrand was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat this opened the door through a special election for her congressional seat.
Gillibrand's seat is widely viewed, by both parties, as the Holy Grail of 2009. One of the reasons for this is the NY-20 special election could be a preliminary look at the electoral climate for 2010. Giving both parties a solid view on which strategies might work and might not in the upcoming Congressional runs. Also, it could potentially serve a referendum against President Obama and his current economic policies if Teidsco is victorious.
Here is how the New York 20th CD sits, concerning voter demographics, as of 11/1/08; Dem-125,486 (26.27%), Rep-194,118 (41.06%), Other-156,078 (32.67%). In 2008, President Obama won the district with 167,827 votes (50.70%) versus McCain who carried 157,879 votes (47.70%).
According to the Siena Research Institute, Democrat Scott Murphy is leading State Representative and Republican, Jim Tedisco, by a margin of four points among likely voters, or 47-43%. This would mean that Murphy rallied from a four point deficit as of two weeks ago. At the time, Tedisco was leading Murphy by 45-41%.
Click on image to enlarge.
Strangely enough DNC support for Murphy has been very limited. Tim Kaine, Chairman of Democratic National Committe, kept his distance from Murphy while he visited at their headquarters. Also the DNC only contributed about five thousand dollars to assist Murphy. While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent more than $373,000 on the election.
Another complaint New York Democrats have is the limited support they are receiving from the White House. President Barack Obama, on Wednesday, finally endorsed Scott Murphy for his election bid.
In contrast, the Republicans are heavily supporting James Tedisco. Michael Steele, Chairman of the RNC, has released $275,000 and the National Republican Congressional Committee has put forth $550,000 to assist Tedisco.
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