NY-20 Special Election

[Dan the Roman]

Tedisco is doing much better than McCain in Saratoga, Otsego, and Greene, but then again he represents that part of the district. The most democratic parts of the district, Washington and Dutchess, have not reported at all yet.

[Dan the Roman]

Dutchess is 24/72 in, Murphy leads 51-49

Not good for Murphy if it holds up.

[Dan the Roman]

Perhaps I am a pessimist, but I am not getting a good feeling about this... :/

Uh, Murphy is winning now.

Not if your looking at the county sites.

[Dan the Roman]

Delaware is a Republican county, went for McCain 53-46 compared to Obama winning the district.

I would give Tedisco about a 75% chance of winning right now.

[Dan the Roman]

Interestingly the most recent batch of votes in Saratoga actually went to Murphy by about 200. Unfortunately, the county site doesn't give breakdowns.

[Dan the Roman]

Given the outstanding precincts I tend to think it is Tedisco, but likely in 400-700 range. Colombia could bring in 1200 or so for Murphy, and Tedisco has stopped gaining much in Saratoga, and will probably max out at another 600 or so votes there. Everything else will probably favor him by a 100 or so.

[Dan the Roman]

Given the outstanding precincts I tend to think it is Tedisco, but likely in 400-700 range. Colombia could bring in 1200 or so for Murphy, and Tedisco has stopped gaining much in Saratoga, and will probably max out at another 600 or so votes there. Everything else will probably favor him by a 100 or so.

I have everything but Columbia (38 precincts), half of Delaware (24 precincts), and Saratoga (43 precincts)

Saratoga is now at 170 with a 4400 vote Tedisco lead. Not great, but likely sufficient.

[Dan the Roman]

I am liking something in the area of 700 votes at the final margin.

[Dan the Roman]

Delaware ended up only +26 Tedisco.

Still 8 precincts out from Columbia and 14 from Saratoga, plus all the absentees...

We aren't going to know a winner tonight.

11 of the Saratoga ones went Murphy by about 50 votes. He should win tonight by 200 or so.

[Dan the Roman]

Two things worth noting.

1. Democrats made a huge absentee effort from both the Unions and and the Obama network. Its worth noting that  absentee votes actually favored the Democrats heavily in the 2008 election for the first time.

2. Supporting this, of the 6000 ballots returned, Republicans have a 800 vote lead, and a 600 lead out of the full 10,000 issued. This sounds like a lot, but remember, registration is 42-26-24(R-D-I). Make of that what you will.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/03/too-close-to-call.html

[Dan the Roman]

Two things worth noting.

1. Democrats made a huge absentee effort from both the Unions and and the Obama network. Its worth noting that  absentee votes actually favored the Democrats heavily in the 2008 election for the first time.

2. Supporting this, of the 6000 ballots returned, Republicans have a 800 vote lead, and a 600 lead out of the full 10,000 issued. This sounds like a lot, but remember, registration is 42-26-24(R-D-I). Make of that what you will.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/03/too-close-to-call.html

Point 2 is not exactly what the blog says.  The absentee votes have NOT been counted.  In fact, one of the reasons why the Republican and Conservative parties sought and got the mysterious court order was so that absentee ballots could not be counted until uniform standards were set - something that was sorely lacking in Minnesota.  Greene County was set to count its incoming absentees tonight.  That (supposedly) didn't happen.

What the blog says is that of the 10,000+ absentees sought, registered Republicans sought about 600 more (presumably than registered Democrats), and of the 5,906 returned, 798 more came in from registered Republicans (again, presumably more than registered Democrats). 

How those Republicans voted is totally unknown.  For all we know, they could have gone 70-30 to Tedisco while the Independents broke more or less even and Democrats went 90-10 to Murphy, which would actually increase Murphy's lead.

That's what he meant, he just worded it strangely. Hence the comparison to overall registration figures - absentee voters seem to lean slightly less strongly Republican in registration than the district population overall.

Thanks, sorry I was unclear on that. I was referring to registrations on the returned votes, hence the take as you will ending as well. Without exit polls of the regular race its hard tell what to make of it. But I do think the Democrats had a massive ground game advantage here, and that will count in these votes as it did for the election day results, perhaps more so even. They had Obama staffers running it as opposed to the NYGOP apparatchiks Tedisco had.

Actually this has been a serious problem in special elections. The GOP uses rent-a-volunteers who know nothing about the area, and are lazy. This was a real problem in the MA-05 election where they lost votes consistently from the time the RNCC went in.  This needs to be fixed, because while incumbents can have their own networks, the GOP had really been doing badly in open seats where their candidates are legislators with established volunteer bases.

Oddly enough Tedisco should have had one from his Assembly district. That he didn't is a sign of the disastrous campaign he ran.

[Dan the Roman]

Take this as you like. Dailykos claims Tedisco is challenging every ballot from a voter with a 2nd home in the district in Columbia county, which may be depressing Murphy's total by as much as 100.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/9/718067/-NY-20:-Urgent-distress-call-from-Columbia-County