Race in NY-20: It’s a tie ladies and gentlemen
First Murphy seemed to have won the election,then Tedisco took the lead, now they’re tied.
The news coming from New York’s district 20 is becoming stranger and stranger as days go by. The voting machines are recanvassed, which led Republican Jim Tedisco to take the lead (by as few as 12 votes at a certain moment). As it is now, Tedisco and his Democratic opponent Scotty Murphy are tied, however.
Jim Geraghty reports: “The recanvass of the ballots in the NY-20 race has yielded, so far, a 77,225 to 77,225 tie. Saratoga County still has to be recanvassed, and absentee ballots have to be included.”
It’s utterly amazing just how close elections can be. The situation with the NY-20 seat in Congress reminds me of how things are going in Minnesota. Norm Coleman and Al Franken are virtually tied there as well, and both have gone to court over the results. The battle could drag on for months, possibly even longer. It seems to me that we should expect the same thing to happen in New York.
All votes haven’t been recounted yet, however. There are still several thousands to go. Especially absentee ballots will be of crucial importance. Jennifer Rubin explained earlier this week for Commentary why this is probably good news for Tedisco:
According to absentee-ballot numbers I received last night: in Warren, Republicans returned 569 of 764 ballots while Democrats returned only 316 of 437, with 113 of 205 “other” ballots returned. I suppose the Democrat could pick up votes, but he’d have to overcome a tremendous differential in party identification of the returned absentee ballots — 569 vs. 316, or 57% vs. 31%. (That’s a big advantage over registration in the county as a whole, where Republicans have only 49% of the electorate.) How likely is that?…
But the real kicker is in Saratoga. The latest figures there were 1,731 ballots returned, 922 of which were Republican and 502 Democratic (53% vs. 29%), with the remainder “other .” That is a very big chunk of the absentees, about one third. Tedisco won that county by a 54-46% margin.
None of these figures include the approximately 1,000 military ballots sent out (less than 200 returned). Considering Murphy’s comments on ROTC recruitment on campus and the assumption that military voters are more conservative, these will likely go in Tedisco’s favor. No one knows how it will all shake out, and this is why they count the ballots — to find out who really won.
A victory for Tedisco would be great news for Republicans – they’d have won every election after the November elections of last year – and bad news for Democrats. Especially President Obama would lose face – he lobbied hard for Murphy, knowing that a victory for Tedisco would’ve been interpreted as a defeat for him (Obama) first and foremost.
