NY-20 Special Election

[cinyc]

Updated Dutchess link:
All in

[cinyc]

County   Murphy   Tedesco   SE D%   2006 Change
Columbia   2544   1981   56.22%   2.10%
Delaware   1864   2091   47.13%   -1.06%
Dutchess   9569   8988   51.57%   3.58%
Essex   630   593   51.51%   2.03%
Greene   3826   4834   44.18%   3.72%
Ostego   931   999   48.24%   4.32%
Rensselaer   7576   8035   48.53%   4.83%
Saratoga   17742   21438   45.28%   7.32%
Warren   8680   6890   55.75%   -1.92%
Washington   6831   5338   56.13%   -2.98%
            
Total   60193   61187   49.59%   3.51%


Tedesco 61187 (50.41%)
Murphy 60193 (49.59%)

[cinyc]

Murphy is running out of counties where he's leading.

Tedisco 59,252 (50.5%)
Murphy 58,133 (49.5%)

Well, there's still Columbia.

[cinyc]

Reporting seems to have grinded to a hault, which means here on out, it's mostly precincts were the ballot reconciliation did not match.  And Columbia, which obviously is being slow.  It will be a long night, and longer than just night, but it's hard to see Murphy pulling it off.  I like 1,000 or so.

What's out is Columbia (D-leaning), Delaware (R-leaning), Essex (D-Leaning, but small), and Saratoga (swing; currently R-leaning, but if what's out is from Saratoga Springs, we may be in for a surprise).

[cinyc]

My updated count, with more of Saratoga in:

Tedesco 67,755 (50.56%)
Murphy 66,248 (49.44%)

[cinyc]

All but 11 Saratoga precincts (plus the missing Delaware and Columbia county precincts) in:
Tedesco 69,369 (50.45%)
Murphy  68,122 (49.55%)

[cinyc]

Murphy down by 102 now...

More of Columbia and Delaware came in on the AP feed:
Tedesco 75,692 (50.01%)
Murphy 75,664 (49.99%)

[cinyc]

Tedisco really underperformed in Delaware.

3.74 points worse than Sweeney in 2006.

[cinyc]

All but 1 Saratoga precinct in now:
Tedesco 76,278 (50.08%)
Murphy  76,047 (49.92%)

Edit: with all of Columbia in, 1 Saratoga out:

Murphy  77,208  (50.03%)
Tedesco 77,127 (49.97%)

[cinyc]

All but 1 Saratoga precinct in now:
Tedesco 76,278 (50.08%)
Murphy  76,047 (49.92%)

Your Washington is out-of-date, I think.  Pretty sure it's Murphy +81.

No - my Columbia wasn't updated when I added the new Saratoga precincts.  Washington's done.

[cinyc]

My calculations have it at 76,956 - 76,907 for Murphy, using the AP totals and calculating the difference between their results for Saratoga and the county results (which are all in).

They are behind in Washington.  I'm 99.9% sure it's 77,208-77,127 Murphy.

That is what the Saratogian has.

And what I have based on the County BOE websites (except for the crapy Columbia, Delaware and  Ostego ones which don't have results up, where I used the Saratogan count).

[cinyc]

So there is still one precinct remaining, right?

Yes.  Somewhere in Saratoga County.  Exactly where may matter.  Some had as many as 767 voters in 2006.  And some are more Republican than others.   

[cinyc]

All in but the absentees, recount and lawsuits:

Murphy 77,344   (50.02%)
Tedesco 77,279 (49.98%)

Murphy +65

[cinyc]

County           Change from R% 2006 (+ pro-Tedesco vs. Sweeney; - pro-Murphy vs. Gillibrand)
Columbia     2.01 Points
Delaware    -3.74 Points
Dutchess          3.58 Points
Essex          -1.75 Points
Greene           3.22 Points
Ostego           3.80 Points
Rensselaer   4.83 Points
Saratoga           6.53 Points
Warren          -1.92 Points
Washington   -2.88 Points

[cinyc]

CBS 6 Albany has it:
615 of 615 precincts reporting   100%
    Scott Murphy (D/I/WF)    77,344   50%
    Jim Tedisco (R/C)    77,285   50%

Murphy +59
I don't know what the discrepancy is.

FWIW, the Saratogan agrees with my count.

[cinyc]

Not getting the Independence line cost Tedisco dearly.

[cinyc]

Without the absentees and excluding blank votes, total votes cast was 49.6% of the 2008 tally, 65.6% of the 2006 tally and 54.2% of the 2004 tally (excluding votes for the the minor party candidate, which I didn't tally).  Pretty good turnout for a special election if it's 65.6% of the off-year tally before absentees.

[cinyc]

You know that if Tedisco was leading by 65 votes, the media would just declare it for him now.

Nonsense.  It may be 59 votes, if you believe the CBS 6 Albany and WNYT Albany counts.

Why are the absentees expected to favor Murphy?

We don't know, Torie.  Anyone who claims they do is lying.  If the absentees more or less follow the actual vote and they're disproportionately from Greene or Saratoga counties, they probably favor Tedisco.  If they're disproportionately from Columbia, Essex, Warren or Washington counties, they probably favor Murphy.  

Bizarrely, neighboring Delaware and Greene Counties went different ways -  Murphy outperformed 2006 Gillibrand  in Delaware County but lagged in Greene.   Delaware County is in the Binghamton DMA while Greene is in the Albany DMA.  Maybe that had something to do with it?

[cinyc]

You know that if Tedisco was leading by 65 votes, the media would just declare it for him now.

Nonsense.  It may be 59 votes, if you believe the CBS 6 Albany and WNYT Albany counts.

Why are the absentees expected to favor Murphy?

We don't know, Torie.  Anyone who claims they do is lying.  If the absentees more or less follow the actual vote and they're disproportionately from Greene or Saratoga counties, they probably favor Tedisco.  If they're disproportionately from Columbia, Essex, Warren or Washington counties, they probably favor Murphy.  

Bizarrely, Delaware and Greene Counties went different ways -  Murphy outperformed 2006 Gillibrand  in Delaware County but lagged in Greene.   Delaware County is in the Binghamton DMA while Greene is in the Albany DMA.  Maybe that had something to do with it?

Greene is in Tedisco's AD, I believe.

If you notice, Tedisco overperformed in his AD and underperformed worse the further you get away.  Murphy underperformed in Warren for some reason (home county).

Good point about Greene.

Underperformed versus what is the question.  Murphy did 1.95 points better in Warren County than Gillibrand in 2006 (which is what I've been using as a baseline).  Unless you have the County-by-CD stats, you can't directly compare Obama's performance in most counties because only parts of most counties are in the district (I'm not sure about Warren).  The worthless New York State Board of Elections site doesn't have that information.

Edit:  Tedisco's AD doesn't include any of Greene, just parts of Schenectady and Saratoga counties.

[cinyc]

A chart:

County	Murphy %	2006  D% Change	County Turnout vs 2006
Columbia	56.31%	-2.01%	64.49%
Delaware	49.81%	3.74%	53.12%
Dutchess	51.57%	-3.58%	58.06%
Essex	55.29%	1.75%	50.77%
Greene	44.68%	-3.22%	60.10%
Ostego	48.76%	-3.80%	52.33%
Rensselaer	48.53%	-4.83%	63.96%
Saratoga	46.07%	-6.53%	72.71%
Warren	55.75%	1.92%	67.68%
Washington	56.03%	2.88%	69.86%
Total	50.02%	-3.08%	65.60%

Before counting absentees, the greatest percentage of ballots cast versus the 2006 off-year election number was in Saratoga County, home to part of Tedisco's Assembly district.  It was one of Tedisco's best counties (along with Greene), and the one with the most improvement from Sweeney in 2006.

Turnout was lowest, relatively speaking, in rural Essex, Ostego, Delaware and Dutchess counties.  The lowest turnout tended to be in pro-Murphy or marginal counties.   If the absentees are from there, Murphy should pull this out. 

[cinyc]

The lowest turnout tended to be in pro-Murphy or marginal counties.

Well isn't that suspicious.

Not really.  All 4 of those counties are at the fringes of NY-20, with 3 of the 4 lowest-turnout counties (Delaware, Dutchess, Essex) actually outside of the Albany DMA (TV market), and Ostego only marginally inside it.  They may not have been as innundated with ads were they watching New York, Binghamton, Utica, Syracuse or Burlington/Plattsburgh TV stations instead of the network stations from Albany.

[cinyc]

This is going to go on forever. Get ready.

Me and you will have something in common!

You have 6 years left for a fight.  This can go on for a maximum of 21 months until the next general election.

[cinyc]

This is going to go on forever. Get ready.

Me and you will have something in common!

You have 6 years left for a fight.  This can go on for a maximum of 21 months until the next general election.

Which would give the Republicans a very easy way to freeze a Democrat out until the 2010 elections should Murphy look like he's going to win.

Downstate, we still voted on the 50-year-old mechanical lever machines in the 2008 elections.  There are no hanging chads or dangling chads or half-filled circles to interpret. 

New York was supposed to replace those machines soon.  Did they by this election?   I don't know - but Eraserhead should, since he voted.  If they didn't, there won't be as much to argue over as there was in Minnesota.  Voter intent is clear with the lever machines.  They either registered a vote or didn't.

I doubt this will drag on for more than a few months.

[cinyc]

Good question - was it lever voting upstate?  Because there won't be much argument, if so - I'm with cinyc there.  It's pretty clear. 

I actually hope they never replace the things.

It looks like Murphy did:

[cinyc]

Does anyone know the breakdown between precinct and absentee voters in 2008 in the 20th Congressional District for President?

That should give us an approximation of the breakout of the absentee vote.

I don't think New York keeps that data.  I looked at the 2006 and 2008 official Saratoga County results, and there are no special precincts for absentees.  The best you could do is to try to compare the election day and final official tallies, if you can find the former somewhere. 

We do know that there are at least 6,000 and up to 10,000 outstanding absentees.  We don't have a county-by-county breakdown - yet.

Because the NY-20 boundaries don't match county lines (and New York doesn't keep Presidential election by county by CD data), direct comparisons to the 2008 Presidential results in those counties would be difficult - and perhaps misleading.  To be accurate, you'd have to recreate the CD data from precinct level data.  We may have that here somewhere.  I've been comparing results to the close 2006 NY-20 off-year election, since turnout was about half of the 2008 election so far (without absentees).