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Questions about New York 23

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
11/04/09 9:17 AM EST

The race for New York's 23rd Congressional District certainly defied many pollsters. On Monday, I headlined a post here at Beltway Confidential "Conservative Hoffman takes dominant lead in New York 23," citing a new poll showing Hoffman with a double-digit lead. Other surveys showed Hoffman ahead by smaller, but still significant, margins. The polls also suggested that momentum was trending Hoffman's way.

But by Tuesday night, Hoffman was the loser. What happened? At the moment, we don't as much information about the voters in New York 23 as we have from the Virginia and New Jersey governor's races, so it's hard to say with much confidence. But there are a number of questions to ask:

1) How influential was withdrawn Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava's endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens? Beyond the endorsement, why did so many of Scozzafava's supporters -- who identified themselves as Republicans by about a two-to-one margin -- choose Owens?

2) What was the effect of outside players -- Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, Tim Pawlenty, Fred Thompson, the Club for Growth and others -- who strongly advocated for Hoffman? Were voters turned off by outsiders taking a role in the race? In particular, what was their reaction to the highest-profile of the outsiders, Palin? On the other side, what was the effect of Vice President Joe Biden's last-minute appeal in the race?

3) How influential, or un-influential, was the Pelosi Effect -- that is, Hoffman's argument that a vote for Owens would be a vote for the Democrats' big-government agenda in Washington? Did the voters simply not buy it, or was there some other reason they rejected Hoffman?

We'll likely know a little more about these issues in the next few days. But in the meantime, the surprising results -- if you asked most GOP politicos before Tuesday, they would have said they expected to win in New York 23 and lose in New Jersey -- should have Republicans asking a lot of questions.

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Reader Comments

All comments on this page are subject to our Terms of Use and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Examiner or its staff. Comment box is limited to 250 words.

conversefive

Nov 4, 2009

You forgot one: ACORN, SIEU and voter fraud.

dc08

Nov 4, 2009

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY, This is the best of all possible worlds. the
Democrats pick up a seat they have not held in over a century; The win
blunts any talk of Obama being a drag on the Democrats; The win occurs
in a district that had a Republican registration advantage of 40,000;
and the "wingnuts" got close enough that they will continue to recruit
other wingnuts against mainstream Republicans, which will cause money
drained, mortally wounded winners in Republican primaries, some of
those Republicans will realize they are closer to Democrats than the
wingnuts and some of the Republican mainstream candidates and some
Republican voters will either endorse or vote for the Democrats, and
most of all it shows that Palin, Limbaugh and Beck cannot create a
winning candidate even in a safe Republican district. soooooo. HAPPY
HAPPY JOY JOY

OldFirefighter

Nov 4, 2009

My question would be,why did over 7000 people vote for Scozzafava when she had already dropped out of the race? Evidently they don't watch local news or read local news papers to know she was out of the race. It's a little like betting on a dead horse winning a race. It does tend to prove they're not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier.

elmer

Nov 4, 2009

I cannot understand why people of n.y would waste their vote on a person not even running.That is like cutting off your nose to spite your face, in other words, real stupid!!!

Griswel

Nov 4, 2009

Polling-wise, I think the answer is that it's far more difficult to poll, or maybe it's justify the expense of polling well, in a smaller election. As for losing, the cards were stacked against Hoffman pretty well (no major party, attacks from both opponents, split vote). In an even race, he probably would have won.

DRB

Nov 4, 2009

Another factor to look at is what the people from outside the district were saying and the tone they used. A consistent theme of this newspaper was to ridicule the Republican chairman who picked Scozzafava (Noemie Emory continues this even today). These are the leaders in the community, I am not sure belittling them had the desired effect on the rank and file.

Mad Monica

Nov 4, 2009

Hey, the libs have to find SOMETHING good out of all this. Owens' teeny win over a man who was completely unknown just weeks ago is the only thing they've got right now. Let 'em have their little victory. It's the only one they're going to get for some time to come.

tad

Nov 5, 2009

I only saw one interview with Hoffman, but my impression of him was highly negative. He couldn't string coherent thoughts together, and had nothing to say other than talk about all the GOP celebs coming to the district. Could it just be that Hoffman was a terrible candidate, and people in the district began focusing on that, so he lost.

Mad Monica

Nov 5, 2009

Thing is, until the GOP can stop fighting its own supporters, the Post, the Times and all the rest of the liberal establishment are going to have an easy fight. Conservatives are going to have to come together and fight back to top this kind of thing.

Steve Brown

Nov 5, 2009

Hoffman has his rough edges and needs to mature as a candidate. This was exposed a few times and if he prepares well between now and next November, he can give Owens a run for the seat. Also, I'd put the loss also on Dede's endorsement of Owens and the complete 180 that the RNC did...one moment they're running attack ads against Hoffman in Dede's behalf and the other they're supporting Hoffman? No, I think this really sandbagged Hoffman and confused things enough that Hoffman didn't win. Byron, you do raise good questions about what impact Sarah Palin had on this race, good or bad.

Elmer

Nov 5, 2009

1 Year only. Hoffman only had 2 weeks but from 20% to 45% was really a good finish.

Scozzafava betrayed the Rs.

Good things are certain to come next year:

1. Scozzafava is no longer R next year.

2. Hoffman will run again. Next time, he's already prepared.

3. Thanks to TP and Libertarian Conservatives like Palin and Thompson. We, ordinary Americans who want to make a change, now has the HOPE to take back the Government from corrupt bureaucrats.

4. I feel sorry for Owens. He will be scrutinized in his every move once he stepped into the Congress. In short, NO REST TO THE WICKED. [Gosh, WH practically destroyed the remaining honor of Scozzafava. Her public career is over, except a drag of the Democrat's dirty machine.]

UpLateAgain

Nov 6, 2009

In typical liberal fashion, figures are just being made up to impress those too lazy to do any checking. That the NY-23 seat has been Republican for "over a hundred years" and "since the Civil War" are phrases commonly repeated. In fact, Democrats have held that seat for 66 of the past hundred years. See Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_23rd_congressional_district

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Questions about New York 23

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
11/04/09 9:17 AM EST