NY House Race Too Close To Call, 65-Vote Dem Lead

ALBANY, N.Y. — The campaign is over, but the election is far from decided in a New York Congressional race.

It's up to absentee ballots to decide who'll join the House of Representatives from New York's 20th District. Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 65 votes out of more than 154,000 cast in Tuesday's special election.

They're vying for the seat that Kirsten Gillibrand left when she was appointed to the U.S. Senate to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

More than 10,000 absentee ballots were issued, and overseas voters have until April 13 to return them by mail.

Democrats won the district in 2006 and 2008. Republicans hold an advantage of 75,000 more registered voters than Democrats.

Comments

[kepary]

65 votes is a real mandate of Obamas policies

[Lucky123]

I think you meant to say, "75,065 votes is a real mandate of Obama's policies".

[TYTFan]

This is the most Republican District in New York. Registered Republicans out number Democrats by a significant margin.

[Blufftonian]

Obama backed, in New York? Why is it so close?

[DinkSinger]

Because this is an extremely conservative and traditionally Republican area of the state. It was represented in the House for twenty-years by Gerald Solomon, who you may recall was the Chairman of the House Rules Committee from 1995 to 1999. Gillibrand is a very conservative Democrat who was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition in the House and voted against the TARP in September, October and January. While she got 62% of the vote in November, Obama received 51%.

[historymatters]

why was someone who didn't even live in the district allowed to run for office to represent that district? Is that allowed everywhere in New York? I thought most places had at least some kind of minimal residency requirement.

[DinkSinger]

It's allowed everywhere in the United States. The US Constitution sets the qualifications for President, Vice-President, Senators and Representatives. The requirements for Representatives are "No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen." The Supreme Court decided that states cannot add additional requirements in the Term Limits case in 1995 (although it was a 5-4 decision). They had already decided that Congress cannot add requirements in Powell v McCormack in 1969. So if we want to impose residency requirements we will have to amend the Constitution.

[-0013]

Two more weeks should be plenty of time for ACORN to fabricate enough votes for the dems to win this one.

[UncommonSenz]

Cling to that talking point sparky.. CLING!!!!!!

[Citizen54]

Oh, was it ACORN that fabricated the votes that put GW Bush in office?

[freedomitchy]

In a District that went 68% for Kirsten Gillibrand just five months ago, the Democrat just managed a tie. That's no win, no matter how you spin it, and Republicans should be heartened that they were able to close the gap in a District which voted for Obama and elected a Democrat to Congress comfortably in the two previous elections.

[UncommonSenz]

It is a district where republicans outweigh dems. Try spinning that all you like, but we can actually read here:

"Democrats nationally treated the election as at least a moral victory Tuesday night because Murphy performed so well in the traditionally Republican District that has an edge of 75,000 registered voters."

So, repubs had a 75,000 head start, and a well established candidate who obviously had name recognition with the voters and they STILL couldn't pull out a victory.

[freedomitchy]

Okay, with the full force of the newly elected president in the height of his "honeymoon" the Democrats' candidate vote total fell 18 percent.

[jazzman]

If the Republicans have a 75,000 vote registration edge in a district and can barely eek out a win they've got some serious problems. This is like the University of North Carolina playing the University of NH to a tie in a basketball or USC tying University of Rhode Island in a football game.

These are the elections the Republicans are supposed to win going away

This is an ominous sign indeed for our friendly obstructionist and looney GOP.

[labman]

First: Jim Tedisco was not allowed to vote in the election, because he doesn't live in the district.

Second: He made a campaign ad saying he agreed with the president," That we are not Republicans or democrats, we are Americans, and that's the team I'm on."

Third: In an after the polls closed interview which showed him ahead, He reverted back to his old politic hack job that he's always done.

The 20th Congressional District will suffer if this guy wins.

[Bramble8]

Toe to Toe? Give me a break.

[jadeba]

If this is anything like MN, then Murphy should extend his lead. The majority of the ballots that the rs rejected as opposed to those rejected by ds did not stand up in the recount in MN.

[stevi]

Maybe this will give the "grand obstructionist party" another opportunity for WAR, world war 3, or maybe world war 4 since the Franken dispute is 3. I betcha!

[jazzman]

WWIII happens if Franken gets seated.

[batmanindy]

Get a load of this -- going to court already! GOP mantra these days I guess:

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/gop-democrats-trying-to-steal-ny20-2009-04-01.html

[k6007]

'Activist judges'...The last refuge of scoundrels.

[TimtheEnchanted]

If this were a good old playground game of dodgeball, they would be crying for their mommies right now.

[UnknownSoldier]

Lots of ra-ci-st up there that make money in the prison industry.............. not real republicans just a lot of anti democrats

[helpontheway]

i'm from the area and i agree with your assessment but it seems like things might slowly be changing-- the usually anti democrat Whitehall Times in Washington County endorsed Murphy even though the larger Glens Falls paper The Post Star in Warren County endorsed Tedisco.

[LaurieLee]

I grew up in upstate NY. It's almost similar to Appalachia, but with pockets of old, small money but affluent WASPs. I'd wager it's more libertarian than Republican, but all anyone there cares about is lower taxes. Odd, considering that most of them don't even pay net taxes. That any Democrat is even considered a contender is astounding.

[Citizen54]

The taxes paid by NYC residents take care of the people upstate.

[Grunty1]

[A lawsuit filed by state Republicans Tuesday night required all ballots to be impounded to ensure accuracy]

I hate to agree with Republicans, but shouldn't this be standard procedure in ANY election?

[when the smoke clears, we'll have won a tremendous victory," Tedisco said]

Nice to see that Jim "Dubya Mandate" Tedisco has extremely low standards of "tremendous"

[RickyPoo]

Based on the Coleman fiasco, the democracy-hating, sore loser GOP will drag this out for months with the corporate media either turning a blind eye or cheering on the GOP for being "shrewd" by being anti-democracy.

We'll be lucky if the guy gets seated by 2016.

This is also quite disgusting. I've been using that word a lot this morning.

[stevi]

I complete agree. I wonder if the American People will get fed-up with these repubs being such poor losers? I find this disgusting, but not surprising. Who would expect anything different from these hypocrites?