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

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Freaking hilarious.

Carl Paladino is apparently being talked up as a candidate.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Hey, the Democrats picked a candidate finally! It's Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Things just got a little interesting: Jack Davis may actually be getting on the ballot.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Davis has run as a Democrat before, but he only ran on one issue: protectionism. I believe he tried to get considered for the Republican nomination this time. He's kind of crazy, but he has a lot of money, which is a big head start when the election is only in a couple months.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Things just got a little interesting: Jack Davis may actually be getting on the ballot.

There doesn't seem to be much "there" there.

12,000 signatures when the requirement is 3,500? Even in New York, that's got to be a pretty good chance of getting on the ballot.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Remember that if Jack Davis makes the ballot he will officially be referred as the "Tea Party" candidate so you would think he would take mostly conservative votes.

Remember that this is a special election. That tactic didn't work in 2010, and it certainly won't work in a 2011 election where voters are better informed.

Jack Davis will not get enough votes to be a factor in this race.

So it's immaterial that he has piles of money he can spend, whereas those "Tea Party" candidates last year were paper candidates?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Hochul raised $350k through the end of March.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I'd expect PPP with or without Kos to do one, but maybe they're still smarting over their NY-23 poll.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Jack Davis put $1.6 million of his own money into the race in the first quarter, and has already spent nearly all of it (mostly on advertising).

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Corwin is apparently loaded too. She only raised about $100k, but she loaned herself a cool million. About half of that has been spent already.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Finally, a poll. Too bad it's Siena.

Jane Corwin (R) - 36
Kathy Hochul (D) - 31
Jack Davis (I) - 23
Ian Murphy (G) - 1

Favorables:

Corwin - 44/31
Hochul - 44/31
Davis - 42/41
Murphy - 5/17

Obama - 39/57 (don't know why they polled this and not approval)
Pelosi - 25/67
Boehner - 45/34
Cuomo - 72/20 (!)

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Remember that if Jack Davis makes the ballot he will officially be referred as the "Tea Party" candidate so you would think he would take mostly conservative votes.

Remember that this is a special election. That tactic didn't work in 2010, and it certainly won't work in a 2011 election where voters are better informed.

Jack Davis will not get enough votes to be a factor in this race.

So it's immaterial that he has piles of money he can spend, whereas those "Tea Party" candidates last year were paper candidates?

That's what I'm saying, yes. He's got no natural constituency. The paper candidates last year did.

Still sticking with that?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

When's the election?

May 24.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Plenty of time for the race to move into genuine three-way tossup territory then, leading to Corwin tanking and finally dropping out to ensure Davis' victory?

Nah, Corwin doesn't have Scozzafava's problems. However, if Davis gets up into the 30s, she'll really be in trouble.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

He also runs on a populist protectionist platform.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Compare and contrast janecorwin.com with janecorwin.org. It's subtle at first.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Very funny - but you have an interesting definition of "subtle".

I mean that if you glance at it, it looks like the same website.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I haven't really been following this race.  What ballot lines are each candidate running on?

Hochul has D/WF, Corwin has R/Cons/IP, Jack Davis is on his own specially-made "Tea Party" ticket.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Impressive, but for Hochul to win, Davis is probably going to have to get closer to 30%. I doubt she'll be able to do much better than 35%.

If she does happen to win, it will be possible to give her a winnable district for 2012 by putting Slaughter's part of Erie County into the district. You can carve out two 54-44 Obama districts in western NY while giving Slaughter a 58-40 Obama district that shrinks back to Monroe County. Slaughter may not like that, though.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

American Crossroads is putting $650k into ads for the next two weeks.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

DCCC counters with $250k.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I'm pretty sure he said he'd caucus with the Republicans.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/05/12/starting_trouble_in_ny-26.html

If this really turns out to have been the way it looks in this short video, this could be Jack Davis' 'macaca moment'.

Sure didn't help Bob Etheridge, that's for sure.

Yeah, but Davis smacked down a Librul!!!

Apparently it was Corwin's Chief of Staff behind the camera.

Not sure when CoS's started spending their time being trackers though.

Wasn't Rand Paul's COS playing the role of stalker right after the primary in KY last spring?

It's not a campaign worker, it's her Assembly office Chief of Staff.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

My guess is Davis has collapsed to his bare minimum; anyone left in his column is either going to vote for him regardless of what happens in the next three days or just not vote.

I was wrong about Hochul not being able to pull in more support, though that was predicated on Davis maintaining over 20% support.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NY_05221118.pdf

Hochul 42, Corwin 36, Davis 13.