By Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
FULTON, N.Y. — New York’s U.S. Senate race, once considered safe for Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand, has suddenly become competitive, with a virtually unknown Republican challenger gaining in recent polls.
Gillibrand was leading Republican Joe DioGuardi 52 percent to 41 percent in a poll released Tuesday by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. However, Gillibrand’s lead is shrinking and her supporters indicated to pollsters that their preference could shift before the Nov. 2 election, political observers said. That soft support, combined with a viral anti-incumbent mood among New York voters, leaves Gillibrand vulnerable, they said.
“It’s very possible this race could end up pretty tight,” said Syracuse University political science professor Jeff Stonecash.
Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a D.C. polling firm, said the momentum may be with DioGuardi.
“My assessment of it is that there was a post-primary bounce for the Republicans,” Faucheux said. “The big question is, how big is that bounce and will it last?”
Gillibrand won’t say she’s worried about opponent DioGuardi, an accountant who won the GOP primary earlier this month with the backing of the Tea Party. But she’s keeping a very close eye on him, sending aides out to document his movements on the campaign trail. A Gillibrand staffer on Saturday trailed DioGuardi with a tiny video recorder as DioGuardi shook hands in an upstate diner.
DioGuardi, who served two terms in Congress in the 1980s, didn’t mind the extra attention. Just three months ago, DioGuardi was being shunned by New York Republicans, who put two other candidates, but not DioGuardi, on their primary ballot. Without the party’s backing, DioGuardi had to collect 15,000 signatures just to get into the race. He eventually won the three-way contest.
“When you are in a three-way primary and your party is backing two other candidates, you have to take your case to the people,” DioGuardi said between handshakes at Mimi’s Drive-In in Fulton, N.Y. “That’s what I did. I validated the first three words of our Constitution. We. The. People.”
DioGuardi’s campaign platform, which focuses on slashing federal spending and repaying the national debt, echoes the agenda and anger of Tea Party groups in New York and across the country, though he doesn’t identify himself as a Tea Party candidate.
In a state that gave Democrat Barack Obama 62 percent of its vote in the 2008 presidential election, DioGuardi is counting on voters’ hostility toward Washington to propel his campaign.
“Let me tell you why she is going to lose,” DioGuardi said, ticking off poll numbers that show Gillibrand’s approval rating hovering just above 40 percent, quite low for an incumbent. “She is very vulnerable,” DioGuardi asserted.
Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate last year to take the place of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who stepped down to become secretary of state. But polls and interviews with voters show Gillibrand suffers from low name recognition. And, unlike DioGuardi, who traversed the state this summer in his quest for petition signatures, Gillibrand hasn’t focused on face-to-face retail politics with voters.
Though she’s running in a hyper-anti-incumbent environment, Gillibrand is emphasizing her short tenure in office and promoting in an ad her efforts to block automatic pay raises for senators.
“I haven’t been in Washington long,” Gillibrand says in the ad, “but I’ve been there long enough to know things are broken.”
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