The Battle for America 2010: Shock Poll Has GOP Candidate Up 9 in NY-20
New York has always had a large potential for massive Republican gains. Only two of New York’s 29 congressional seats are held by Republicans, despite a fair number of districts being carried by McCain in 2008. That’s why Nate Silver is projecting a total of 9 seats in play.
Despite Republican polling which consistently provided a strong showing from candidates in these battleground districts, the races have received little media attention — in large part because of Siena’s polling.
Siena College represents the only nonpartisan polling on New York’s congressional races and a majority of the polling for the gubernatorial and Senate races. NY’s 25th Congressional District provides us an excellent example of how Siena’s polling has impacted the narrative of the race. After Republican pollsters gave Ann Marie Buerkle a one-point lead over incumbent Democrat Dan Maffei, Siena released a conflicting poll showing Maffei leading by 12. Syracuse’s largest paper, the Post-Standard, downplayed the Republican poll in light of the recently commissioned Siena. This poll will be nearly a month old when voters pull the lever in November, but it will be the last look the media has at “nonpartisan” polling.
NY-25 is far from the only district showing a surprisingly strong Democrat incumbency. Here’s a list of Siena’s polling over the last month:
NY-24: Democrat incumbent Mike Arcuri over Republican Richard Hanna, 48-40%
NY-1: Incumbent Tim Bishop 51% to Republican Randy Altschuler 39%
NY-23: 44-39% for Democrat Bill Owens over Matt Doheny.
Despite the polling, groups like the NRCC and American Crossroads are investing heavily in these races, an indication that they like what they are seeing in internal polling, and given the unbelievable shift in NY-20, they may be well positioned. If NY-20 is not just an isolated movement of voters, but indicative of upstate congressional races, the big election surprise on November 2 will be NY.
Changing methodology. Questionable, but they have to adjust to this massive wave.
It just confirms what I’ve said all along. It will be a complete slaughter. Might even be an extinction event. ;D
I have been going over the polling data for the last few days. There are a load of races that favored Mc’cain and are being ruled a likely dem or better. This maybe an intresting night. I just cant let myself feel good about these polls. At least until the 3rd.
I have been wondering for some time whether the standard polling turn out models were too conservative. The Republicans supposedly lead in the generic polls by the minimum of five points. In 1994 when they kicked serious butt—they were tied with the Democrats!
I am going on record predicting the GOP will capture 90 House seats and 10 U.S. Senate seats. Please feel free to bookmark my attempt at crystal ball gazing. You will have the full right to make fun of me if I am ultimately proven to be too optimistic.
News coverage should NOT be based on polls.
you bet “the big election surprise on November 2 will be NY”, not least because the four NYC (the WSJ has metro news) newspapers have all but ignored the congressional contests, although Newsday is closely covering the four Dems on Long Isand. The 2008 results for McCain were not only totally ignored by the media, but the NYS Elections Board made it impossible to figure out the results by CD (on purpose), though they did report by county.
There may be nine CDs in play, but there are also at least five more, all downstate, where the longtime Dem incumbent is being forced to seriously campaign.
The turnout by geography will be fascinating because Cuomo does not have coattails, and NYC just fired the new head of the NYC Board of Elections for the fiasco on Sept 14. The Dems are using protecting abortion rights as a main theme to drive turnout for statewide contests.
btw, the only downstate CD that the DNC/OFA has been focussed on is CD-1. Not 4 or 9 or 13. could be a big oops, but, at the very least, a wake-up call for 2012.
Focus on fiscal issues, revive the leadership, and NY could turn red (actually NY is already so deep in the red that maybe the GOP needs to change that color designation!)
News coverage should NOT be based on polls.
There are at least five more downstate CDs where the longtime incumbents have to seriously campaign, not that you would know that from the NYC newspapers.
The NY turnout geography is going to be fascinating! Cuomo has no coattails.
K2K – You are absolutely correct. I think on Nov.3, NY is going to be the state the pundits are talking about as some “big surprise.” You are absolutely right about Cuomo as well. The libs are salavating at the thought that Paladino could drag the ticket down, but don’t realize that Cuomo ain’t pulling the ticket up. I’ve talked to a number of true-blood, downstate progressives and there is zero energy behind Cuomo.
Americans take heart! Toronto just voted in a conservativre mayor by a respectable margin. If that can happen in Toronto it can happen anywhere.
Congratulations to Toronto, my birth city!
If lawn signs are any indication here in NY-25, then Buerkle leads by a sizeable margin. Driving around the area, I have noticed that within Syracuse she and Maffei have roughly the same number of signs posted in peoples’ yards. Out in the suburbs, I’ve seen maybe one Maffei sign. All the others are for Beurkle.
Maffei may win based on the large number of democrats within the city, but it’s clear that Buerkle’s supporters are way more fired up.
@JMD – according to Jill Terrie at the D&C, the voter enrollment is equally split between Democrat and Republican. Only thing Dan Maffei has working is the power of incumbency.