On Friday, the Buffalo News posted an internal poll from Tea Party candidate Jack Davis. The candidate for New York's 26th congressional district said that Democrat Kathy Hochul was polling at 44 percent, enough to win the three-way contest. Mr. Davis had himself second at 27 percent and Republican Jane Corwin at 17 percent. "[R]arely does a campaign release an internal poll as shocking" as that one, the News said.
Ever since saying that she supports Congressman Paul Ryan's budget and Medicare plan, Ms. Corwin has struggled to win a seat that should be an easy get for Republicans. Mr. Ryan has tried raising money for her, as has Florida Congressman Allen West -- who promised he'd take his hands off Medicare when there was no more Medicare.
Now two outside polls since the internal one by Mr. Davis have found Ms. Hochul ahead. With the vote happening tomorrow, Public Policy Polling puts Ms. Hochul at 42 percent, Ms. Corwin at 36 percent and Mr. Davis somewhere in the teens. Ms. Hochul's lead is outside the survey's margin of error. A second survey (pdf), from Siena College, shows Ms. Hochul at 42 percent to Ms. Corwin's 38 percent and Mr. Davis' 12. His support would seem to have been cut in half since the outside conservative groups began attack ads against him, but the disaffected seem to be breaking at least as much toward the Democrat.
In a fundraising appeal today, Ms. Hochul continues to keep expectations low. This one's still a dead heat, plus it's probably good for her to keep a grassroots tone. "Polling has us leading by 4 points, but in order to celebrate when the polls close tomorrow night, I need your help one last time," she writes. "We need to raise just $8,500 more before our final day of Get Out the Vote." In this race, even for her underfunded campaign, that's pocket change.
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Wow, it's amazing how much both sides have built this tiny election up to be a national referendum on one particular issue. Why doesn't America just have ACTUAL referendums on issues? It's worth it, I promise.
I don't think this special election will have the importance that either side is giving it because of the third party candidate on the ballot. It would be a different story if two repubs weren't splitting the vote.
That being said, I hope the dem wins on this.
I agree Uffdaguy, it may not have quite the importance if it was Dem against repub only but if she wins it will still be a major blow to the Reichwingnuts, especially in a blood red district such as New York 26. Just nice to know Carl Rove is sweating like a whore in church as they say..
The only important lesson from this will be that Republican money and meddling in this race seems to have backfired with the Dems picking up the votes from Davis. Someone in the Republican party is going to take the fall if this happens. It is also going to make Republicans gun shy in the 2012 elections with TP candidates.
The same thing happened in a special election in NY earlier too, when the TP destroyed the repub candidate so their own ultraconservative nut job could take on the dem in what should have been an easy repub district. The dem won there too. Repubs have never been very good at history...even when the history isn't as old as the frozen dinner sitting in some of their freezers!
If you don' t have a sense of humor this kind of thing would drive ya crazy...I care more about this victory because it is a sign of the things to come!! I am proud and sad at the same time to be living to witness this. i can't believe my eyes and ears sometimes when watching the news. 30 years ago, growing up in the South, i promised myself that i would no bring a child or dhildren into such a hateful world. I have faith in this country and we will see soon, for one to profit, we must all profit!!! The weird thing is, I grew up and observed that Whites were united and took care of each other. Now, rich Whites have waged a war on poor Whites people.
When will they realize we are in the same boat, if they refuse to let us shower, the stink will soon make it way to them as well.
Got a 4 month old, myself... made him that promise the other day!
Sure hope I (we) can keep it!
Pay no attention to that hidden agenda behind the Republican curtain...
hahahaha...i was thinking the same thing....bravo
I really hate to defend Alan West, but when he made that comment I am petty sure he was saying that without doing anything Medicate will fail and thus "no longer exist". Thus there would not be anything left for him to take his hands off.
the 26th will go republican because the electoral system is broken... no matter what the pre election polls show the final results will be republicans because, as in Wisconsin, the voting machines are in the hands of the corporate owners of the machines or the republicans, to be fixed towards republicans. I predict the republican will will in Buffalo tomorrow. Just watch.
I'll go you one further and predict that Jack Davis is in the single digits. The polls show him much higher, but when Republicans actually get in the voting booth, I suspect they'll do the "right" thing, and in this case, that means breaking to Corwin.
WC Fields said 'Never give a sucker an even break!'. In 2009 The Koch brothers through Dick Armey and his Freedom Works front created the Astro-turf Teabaggers. I’ve concluded that all Teabaggers are Koch’s suckers in an Army of Dick’s.