The NY-26 Election. Have fun but keep your shirt on.

[ag]

Wow, this is big. This was one of only 2 districts in the state that Democrats hadn't manage to win yet.

So what's the other one?  Thanks!

The only district that hasn't been democratic at least briefly since 2005 is NY-3 (King). There are still 6 other Republicans who won in 2010, of course.  The seniority of NY Republican delegation is rather underwhelming ))

[cinyc]

Genesee County is apparently waiting for all the bags of votes to get to the county building before releasing any results.  Erie is the only other county with part out.

[ag]

Most of Genesee is in - Corwin gained a net of about 400 votes.

[cinyc]

Hochul's lead is down to 4.6% with just some of Genesee and Erie out.  Like I said, the final margin will likely be closer to 5 points than 6 - not that that matters much.

[krazen1211]

Right, because winning 2 special elections in Republican leaning districts in upstate New York was a clear predictor of the Democrat's strong performance in 2010, and a clear repudiation of the Republican's opposition to both the Stimulus and Obamacare.

The only thing this election really means in the long run is that Democrats will probably lose both House seats in NY from this redistricting.  And that some heads should roll in the NYGOP, but if that hasn't happened so far i doubt that this will provoke them into action.

Nah. Hochul has to move north to pick up the now unnecessary earmuffs. I actually think Slaughterhouse and Higgins get fairly compact districts this time around; there's little reason to give them much else. Hochul gets about what she has now.

What is likely to happen is that Higgins' district stays the same and Slaughter gets a district that is essentially all of Monroe County.  Hochul will then get a district that is half of Erie and all of Niagara. 

That, plus Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans. The PVI here depends on how many of the Buffalo blacks Higgins takes, and if he drops Chataqua. Hochul will be in a Republican PVI district without any of those Buffalo blacks.

The old plan probably gave Higgins all of Buffalo and all of Niagara Falls while Lee got all the surrounding areas.

[Mr.Phips]

Right, because winning 2 special elections in Republican leaning districts in upstate New York was a clear predictor of the Democrat's strong performance in 2010, and a clear repudiation of the Republican's opposition to both the Stimulus and Obamacare.

The only thing this election really means in the long run is that Democrats will probably lose both House seats in NY from this redistricting.  And that some heads should roll in the NYGOP, but if that hasn't happened so far i doubt that this will provoke them into action.

Nah. Hochul has to move north to pick up the now unnecessary earmuffs. I actually think Slaughterhouse and Higgins get fairly compact districts this time around; there's little reason to give them much else. Hochul gets about what she has now.

What is likely to happen is that Higgins' district stays the same and Slaughter gets a district that is essentially all of Monroe County.  Hochul will then get a district that is half of Erie and all of Niagara. 

That, plus Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans. The PVI here depends on how many of the Buffalo blacks Higgins takes, and if he drops Chataqua. Hochul will be in a Republican PVI district without any of those Buffalo blacks.

The old plan probably gave Higgins all of Buffalo and all of Niagara Falls while Lee got all the surrounding areas.

Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans would go to Reed's district while he would lose half of his portion of Monroe to Slaughter. 

[krazen1211]

Right, because winning 2 special elections in Republican leaning districts in upstate New York was a clear predictor of the Democrat's strong performance in 2010, and a clear repudiation of the Republican's opposition to both the Stimulus and Obamacare.

The only thing this election really means in the long run is that Democrats will probably lose both House seats in NY from this redistricting.  And that some heads should roll in the NYGOP, but if that hasn't happened so far i doubt that this will provoke them into action.

Nah. Hochul has to move north to pick up the now unnecessary earmuffs. I actually think Slaughterhouse and Higgins get fairly compact districts this time around; there's little reason to give them much else. Hochul gets about what she has now.

What is likely to happen is that Higgins' district stays the same and Slaughter gets a district that is essentially all of Monroe County.  Hochul will then get a district that is half of Erie and all of Niagara. 

That, plus Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans. The PVI here depends on how many of the Buffalo blacks Higgins takes, and if he drops Chataqua. Hochul will be in a Republican PVI district without any of those Buffalo blacks.

The old plan probably gave Higgins all of Buffalo and all of Niagara Falls while Lee got all the surrounding areas.

Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans would go to Reed's district while he would lose half of his portion of Monroe to Slaughter. 

Niagara + half of Erie is not enough population; you can't put all 3 of those fully into the Reed district. You have to pick up at least a piece of Orleans to get somewhere from there, unless they start adding counties like Cattaraugus to the Higgins district, in which case Hochul's 'half' of Erie becomes bigger.

[Mr.Phips]

Right, because winning 2 special elections in Republican leaning districts in upstate New York was a clear predictor of the Democrat's strong performance in 2010, and a clear repudiation of the Republican's opposition to both the Stimulus and Obamacare.

The only thing this election really means in the long run is that Democrats will probably lose both House seats in NY from this redistricting.  And that some heads should roll in the NYGOP, but if that hasn't happened so far i doubt that this will provoke them into action.

Nah. Hochul has to move north to pick up the now unnecessary earmuffs. I actually think Slaughterhouse and Higgins get fairly compact districts this time around; there's little reason to give them much else. Hochul gets about what she has now.

What is likely to happen is that Higgins' district stays the same and Slaughter gets a district that is essentially all of Monroe County.  Hochul will then get a district that is half of Erie and all of Niagara. 

That, plus Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans. The PVI here depends on how many of the Buffalo blacks Higgins takes, and if he drops Chataqua. Hochul will be in a Republican PVI district without any of those Buffalo blacks.

The old plan probably gave Higgins all of Buffalo and all of Niagara Falls while Lee got all the surrounding areas.

Genesee, Wyoming, and Orleans would go to Reed's district while he would lose half of his portion of Monroe to Slaughter. 

Niagara + half of Erie is not enough population; you can't put all 3 of those fully into the Reed district. You have to pick up at least a piece of Orleans to get somewhere from there, unless they start adding counties like Cattaraugus to the Higgins district, in which case Hochul's 'half' of Erie becomes bigger.

Niagara plus half of Erie is about 300,000 votes and 660,000 people.

[Nichlemn]

Rationally speaking, Hochul winning shouldn't make any great difference to redistricting. NY State Senate Republicans have the same bargaining power as they did before (perhaps slightly decreased as the election updates our beliefs about their future electoral prospects, but only very marginally). If their bargaining power gave them an expectation of X% of the electoral cake yesterday, then their almost identical bargaining power should give them almost exactly X% of the electoral cake today. How the cake is divided now should be irrelevant.

However, in practice, this probably won't be the case. Redistricters seem to suffer from status quo bias (hence the occasional "incumbent protection map" that is really one party's gerrymander).

[All life is a blur of Republicans and meat.]

It's too bad the teabagger person didn't win. He seemed like a pretty solid dude.

[Rowan]

Seems like my prediction was pretty good.

[Badger]

Another lame spoiler election. It worked in my party's favor this time, but it's still stupid...

It's definitely not a spoiler election because Davis wasn't running on a Tea Party platform, he was running on a protectionist/anti-Paul Ryan plan platform.

lol though read Red State's spin on the election here: http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/05/24/the-gop-loss-in-new-york-was-about-new-york-not-paul-ryan/

Right, because winning 2 special elections in Republican leaning districts in upstate New York was a clear predictor of the Democrat's strong performance in 2010, and a clear repudiation of the Republican's opposition to both the Stimulus and Obamacare.

The only thing this election really means in the long run is that Democrats will probably lose both House seats in NY from this redistricting.  And that some heads should roll in the NYGOP, but if that hasn't happened so far i doubt that this will provoke them into action.

Whereas those other races were run as much on local issues (e.g. carpetbagging) rather than national (where otherwise craptastic GOP candidates actually won significant support), the focal issue here was the Ryan Medicare "dead in a decade" plan.

If Republicans really want to ascribe this to local issues and personalities, I happily URGE them to replay this platform next year.

[Meeker]

Anyone know what's going on with the remaining five precincts in Erie?

[cinyc]

Anyone know what's going on with the remaining five precincts in Erie?

Probably the same thing that happened with the 15 missing precincts from Genesee - no there there.

The Erie County portion of the district is already significantly overrepresented in vote share compared to past regular elections.  Monroe (Rochester) was most underrepresented.

[Verily]

Presumably no one advertised in the Rochester media market because the vast majority of the district is in the Buffalo media market, thus dampening Rochester-market turnout.

[cinyc]

Presumably no one advertised in the Rochester media market because the vast majority of the district is in the Buffalo media market, thus dampening Rochester-market turnout.

Given that relative turnout was also down in the other county in the Rochester TV Market (Livingston), that's probably correct - or at least they advertised less.  Stupid strategy on Corwin's part, but correct.

[Gravis Marketing]

Could they have dumped this much money into the race without advertising in Rochester? Seems like they'd hit declining marginal returns in Buffalo and someone would think to hit the share of the district in Monroe.

[cinyc]

Could they have dumped this much money into the race without advertising in Rochester? Seems like they'd hit declining marginal returns in Buffalo and someone would think to hit the share of the district in Monroe.

I'm sure someone did some advertising there - though I doubt it was anywhere close to as wall-to-wall as it likely was in the Buffalo DMA.  The fact is that Monroe County cast 22-23% of the districtwide vote in 2008 and 2010 and only 19% here.  Livingston's share dropped from a typical 9% to under 8%.  Erie's share, on the other hand, was up from 33-34% to almost 38%.

Granted, that the candidates were from the Buffalo part of the district could have played a role, but the drop is pretty noticeable.

We've seen this pattern before in special elections - Berkshire County, Massachusetts (Albany TV Market) showing lower relative turnout in the MA Special Senate election, the outlying counties of NY-20 in various smaller TV markets showing lower relative turnout compared to the parts of the district in the Albany TV market in the NY-20 special, etc.  So it's not exactly unexpected.

Note: Erie's share is going to be even higher.  3 more districts reported, adding additional votes.  It's 39% of the total now, and might end up at 40%.   Hochul's margin is 4.6%.

[Gravis Marketing]

An alternative explanation drawn from something I saw in DKE: the Monroe end of the district is more Republican than the district as a whole. If we saw higher relative Dem turnout and enthusiam than in recent elections, a sound assumption, then that could account for the difference. Plus both candidates having a base in the western end.

[Cincinnatus]

Rothenberg has moved the race to toss-up/lean Democratic. Claims that Davis is deflating but Corwin is not benefiting. Holy crap. Special elections in upstate New York are just unnecessarily cruel to Republicans, no?

Hochul won by a comfortable margin.  Davis only had somewhere in the range of 7-9%. 

[rob in cal]

Does anyone have any feelings about the effect of Davis on the race.  Had he not been running would Corwin have come significantly closer to winning?

[cinyc]

An alternative explanation drawn from something I saw in DKE: the Monroe end of the district is more Republican than the district as a whole. If we saw higher relative Dem turnout and enthusiam than in recent elections, a sound assumption, then that could account for the difference. Plus both candidates having a base in the western end.

What's DKE?  If it is what I think it is, beware of Democratic hack websites.

If the DKE theory was correct, relative turnout would have equally been down in Wyoming County, the most Republican county of all.  But it wasn't.  

The Monroe part of the district isn't that Republican-leaning.  In the 2008 Congressional election, it was about as Republican as the Niagara part of the district.  But relative turnout was higher than usual in Niagara in the special election.  And I doubt relative turnout and enthusiasm was more Democratic than 2008, anyway.

Yes, both candidates have a base in the western end of the district.  But I doubt that was unusual, given that the bulk of the population is there, too (or, at least, in the Buffalo TV market).  I think both Lee and Kryzan were from Erie County in 2008.

[Gravis Marketing]

All DKE said was that the Monroe county part is more Republican than the district as a whole. The rest was me.

[cinyc]

All DKE said was that the Monroe county part is more Republican than the district as a whole. The rest was me.

At the Congressional level, not really - at least in 2008 and 2010.  In 2008, when both major candidates were from Erie County, the Monroe part was extremely slightly more Lee (R) leaning (57.9% of the two-party vote) than the district (57.6%).  In 2010, when the sacrificial lamb Democratic candidate hailed from Monroe County, it was actually less Lee (R) leaning (71.2%) than the district (73.6%).  In the special election, it was more Republican-leaning than the district as a whole because Hochul really cleaned up in Erie County.

With the final results in, Erie County's votes were 40% of those cast, instead of the usual 33-34%.  Before absentees, Hochul beat Corwin by 5.12 points.

[Holmes]

No maps?

What's DKE?

New Swing State Project, I believe.