Republicans are bracing for an upset Tuesday in a special New York congressional election that Democrats are framing as an early referendum on the GOP’s budget-slashing, entitlement-reforming agenda. By all accounts, Republican businesswoman Jane Corwin was supposed to cruise to victory in a race to fill the 26th District House seat vacated earlier this year by Republican Rep. Christopher Lee, who resigned after being caught sending racy emails to a woman on Craigslist who was not his wife.
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Since the party chose Corwin as its candidate in February, she had been the perceived front-runner in this western, Republican-leaning district, leading Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, by 5 percentage points just a few weeks ago
But Democrats have pounded the district with campaign ads tying Corwin to the congressional Republicans’ 2012 budget plan, authored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. That plan would slash more than $6 trillion in federal spending over the next decade and transform Medicare into a “premium support” system with a higher enrollment age.
Democrats have called Ryan’s Medicare proposal a voucher plan and, in one 26th District campaign ad, proclaimed that Ryan’s plan, and Corwin’s support of it, would “essentially end Medicare.”
Polling in the district by Siena College shows that while voters are keen on reducing federal spending, they have no interest in the government touching entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare.
Corwin now trails Hochul in the polls and could lose Tuesday, particularly if seniors concerned about the Republican Medicare plan dominate what is typically a low turnout for special elections.
The most recent poll released Sunday by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling gave Hochul a 6-point lead over Corwin, while a Saturday poll released by Siena College gave Hochul a 4-point lead.
In the Siena poll, Hochul has 42 percent of the vote, up 11 points from late April. Corwin has 38 percent, up just 2 points for the same period.
“Clearly a little bit of a wake-up call has gone out to Republicans and little bit of energy has gone to the Democrats,” Siena Research Institute Director Donald Levy told The Washington Examiner.
Some of Hochul’s increased support comes from a third-party candidate, Jack Davis, whose support dropped from 23 percent to 12 percent among likely voters, according to Siena.
Corwin has seen some of her support siphoned away by Davis, who has run as a Democrat in the past but is now on the ballot as a Tea Party candidate promoting job creation. Davis’ presence in the race has vexed Republicans, who have wondered if he was planted by the Democrats to divide the vote for Corwin and clear the way for a Hochul victory.
“I think the third-party candidate is a killer right now for the Republicans,” said pollster Ron Faucheux, president of the Clarus Research Group. “If they can get the bulk of these people backing Davis to move back to the Republican side, that would be their hope. If not, they’ll go down the tubes.”
