A Recap of NY-20

Tuesday's special election in New York's 20th congressional district--for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's (D) old House seat--is all the buzz right now, so I thought I'd spend today recapping everyone on what the outlook is for Team Red and Team Blue going into tomorrow.

The race features Democrat Scott Murphy--a businessman and venture capitalist (i.e., rich guy)--squaring off against Republican Jim Tedisco--the state Assembly Minority Leader.

NY-20 is pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with the GOP having the slight edge in voter registration. The district has typically leaned slightly to the right, but Barack Obama carried the district 51% to 48% in 2008 and Gillibrand won her reelection bid by an impressive margin--showing that there are a significant number of cross-over Republicans.

But as is the case with all special elections, ground game and getting the base out to vote will be the deciding factors--factors which were originally thought would favor Tedisco.

Last month, Tedisco led by 12% in a Siena poll and was showing no signs of vulnerability. But then as the campaign went on, that all started to change. His biggest mistake was refusing to take a side regarding President Obama's stimulus package--which made him look like he had no backbone and was not willing to make tough decisions. He later came out against it.

Two weeks passed and he significantly dropped in another Siena poll, which showed that he now only led Murphy by 4%. Since then it's been nothing but good press for Murphy and bad press for Tedisco. Obama cut a radio ad for Murphy--getting him some positive media coverage in the district--while the Libertarian candidate was forced out of the race and endorsed Murphy, which was a slap in the face to Tedisco.

The most recent poll from Siena shows Murphy with a 4% lead over Tedisco, just outside the margin of error. Internal polls from both sides yielded similar results and show the race to be a complete toss-up.

So Tedisco's relatively strong advantage at the outset of this campaign has essentially evaporated leading up to election day, so much so that he revamped his entire campaign two weeks ago. And from the recent polling, it appears that undecided voters are breaking for Murphy.

But be wary with all of this poll analysis because it is notoriously difficult to poll accurately for special elections, mainly because of the unpredictable turnout.

Either way this thing turns out--and it really could go either way--the victorious party is going to spin the hell out of it. If Tedisco wins, the GOP will tout it as a rejection of Obama's policies, and how a district represented by a Democrat flipped to a Republican because the people no longer support him and his "big spending." If Murphy wins, the Democrats will trumpet it as support for Obama's presidency thus far.

But in reality, the Republican have much more to lose than the Democrats from this election.

The Republicans were expected to win this race, and it would be a terrible sign for a party who is already in the midst of a civil war and an identity crisis to suffer this big of a moral (and financial) defeat. Republicans would call for RNC chairman Michael Steele's head, and start pointing fingers at each other--further igniting the civil war within the party. Conservatives would blame Tedisco for being too moderate, and the bickering and scapegoating would self-perpetuate.

If Murphy loses, the Democrats lose a House seat--which they can afford to lose with their large majority--and they waste some money and let the Republican base cheer for a day. But since their party is currently stable and united around Obama, they won't go into panic mode, but will just use this race as a lesson for the 2010 midterms.