Posted on 10/29/2009 3:11:33 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
With polls showing moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava in third place in the NY-23 special election, behind Democrat Bill Owens and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, she may have to deal with a label that is not often applied to major-party candidates -- that of the spoiler. But who, exactly, is she spoiling?
Prof. Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia posited an interesting hypothesis to me: That Scozzafava's remaining vote is not a conservative Republican base vote that would go to Hoffman, since voters on the right have already been coalescing around him, but she could actually be drawing more from the moderate Democrat Owens.
"Most people think of that as just a rock solid Republican vote, but who are those people?" Sabato said. "They're people who now know, for the most part, that Scozzafava is a liberal Republican. They get it. And a lot of them are really unhappy with Hoffman, so are they really gonna back Hoffman?"
As this idea goes -- and keep in mind that it's not a solid pronouncement, but simply an interpretation of the data as it stands now -- if the Republican continues to fall, it could end up helping the Democrat in a district that voted 52% for Barack Obama in 2008, and where a majority might find a Democrat preferable to the right-wing Democrat.
Democrats can still win this by “discovering” votes that were not previously counted.
The latest Daily Kos poll has results in line with a couple of the small-sample internal polls that have been released this week. Hoffman and Owens appear neck-and-neck.
Scozzafava looks like a lost cause.
That would be cool.
So who would benefit most from a Scozzafava pull out?
MIght be true of Scozza’s entire support was from Democrats. But that can’t possibly be true. Surely some of her remaining support has to be Republicans who fall somewhere between Hoffman and her. This is a supposedly “liberal Republican” district? Owens is getting support that a Democrat would not normallly have gotten, perhaps because McHugh was not as Demo-Lite as Scuzzy is, so he held those votes. But since, instead of a McHugh who combined Hoffman and Scuzzy insome kind of tension, we have a polarization of the “two halves” of McHugh (Scuzz and Hoffmann), doesn’t that mean that, as Scuzz falters, support peels off in two directions?
As she falls further and becomes unviable sure, some of her liberal supporters go to the Rat. But for the same reason, as she becomes less viable, at least some of her support has to go to Hoffman, right?
But then I’m from half a continent away. Those closer to the scene tell me where I’m wrong.
So Dede's the democrat and Owens is the right-wing dem?
Sabato usually has decent analysis of issues, but he knows nothing about the electorate. I would put a lot more stock in what Michael Barone says about this race [and I don’t know that he’s commented on it.] Sabato’s analysis is unlikely to be true this far upstate. What is more likely is that Hoffman still doesn’t have very good name recognition in some places and the voters who reflexively pull ‘R’ are just saying “Dede” because they don’t know the candidate.
From what I can tell, Scuzzy is more liberal than Owens. Of course, Owens is bound to walk lock-step with Pelosi, while Dede is likely to vote with her fellow feminist.
Message to Dede: Abandon the race and throw your support to Hoffman.
Your country will appreciate it.
Michael Barone: Scozzafava Is an ACORN Pawn:
http://washingtonindependent.com/65318/michael-barone-scozzafava-is-an-acorn-pawn
Note that Sabato refers to the Dem as a “moderate”
“Sabato usually has decent analysis of issues...I would put a lot more stock in what Michael Barone says”
Agreed. Barone hasn’t published an “electorate analysis” that I’ve seen. But I actually threw out this possibility yesterday. I think it’s very likely that Sczzffzz is at least pulling votes equally from each. She’s got a lot of the left wing endorsements and the district is far from “Conservative” even if it’s voted “R” since 92.
I guess we’ll see on Tuesday !
It’s a very strange district..not “New York” as we normally think of the state..the economy there has been in the toilet for years..BTW..look for the district to disappear after the 2010 election..NY will lose one, possibly two, CD, and rest assured the Dems in Albany will wipe it off the map when they redistrict..
Pretty clearly, Hoffman would benefit from Scozzafava pulling out Owens may have lost some votes to Hoffman, but most of his gains have been Scozzafava’s losses.
It might not matter. Hoffman may have gained enough to win in the three-way race.
It doesn’t seem like he’s very eager to make any predictions re: NY23, maybe because the situation there is too unusual, volatile, and, well, unpredictable.
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