Within the Margin

Over the final days, we’ll be elaborating on our House of Representatives ratings by offering district-by-district rundowns of key races. We’ll open with a statewide analysis of the place we know best: our native New York.

Current state delegation: 21 Democrats, 8 Republicans
Reapportionment changes: -2 seats (for a total of 27 seats)
Competitive Races: 1st, 11th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 24th, 25th, 27th

Following the 2000 elections, Democrats held 19 seats and Republicans 12. The 2002 redistricting eliminated one of each and in that November Dems began a steady increase in their domination of the New York delegation. Tim Bishop picked up the eastern Long Island seat (1st district) to put Dems up 19-10. In 2004, Brian Higgins picked up the Buffalo-based 27th make it 20-9. The 2006 wave saw Dems pick up three more – the mid-Hudson Valley’s 19th, the Upper Hudson Valley/Catskills/Adirondacks 20th, and the 24th in central New York. It was a 26-3 delegation following the 2008 elections, when Dems added the Staten Island/southern Brooklyn 13th, the Syracuse-based 25th, and the Southern Tier’s 29th. A special election in 2009 saw Democrats win the North Country’s 23rd for the first time since before the Civil War, leaving the delegation at a preposterous 27-2 Democratic edge.  That meant that Republicans had oodles of targets in the Empire State for the 2010 midterms. They won back the 13th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 25th and 29th and fell achingly short in the 1st.

And that’s about when New York congresscritters started snapping semi-nude photos of themselves and sending them to potential admirers. First Republican Chris Lee resigned, opening his 26th district in western NY’s GLOW region and Buffalo suburbs. Democrats hadn’t won an election there in quite some time, but they won the special – meaning they had held 28 of New York’s 29 districts at some point in the previous two years. But then Anthony Weiner resigned, opening his 9th district in a politically-marginal patch of Queens and southeast Brooklyn. No one could stop talking about how Democratic the district was and how it couldn’t possibly fall to the GOP, but – I’m going to sing my own praises here – I knew better from the start. Registration numbers don’t tell the whole story; a lot of of those Democrats were older and socially conservative. Throw in a Hasidic bloc vote that had steadily abandoned Democrats over same-sex marriage in recent years, add a stumbling economy, and you have a recipe for Bob Turner to capture the 9th for the GOP.

So that’s where we stand now: 21 Democrats, 8 Republicans, and many, many seats that have changed hands once and often twice in the last decade. The state legislature, divided between a Democratic Asssembly and a Republican Senate, couldn’t agree on a map, so a judge stepped in and drew one herself. It’s a fairly sensible map – some bizarre edges here and there, like the 4 or 5 houses in East Fishkill that are unnecessarily carved out of the new 18th and into the new 19th – that largely maintains communities of interest and which maintains a high number of competitive seats – all of which are described below. The judge had to eliminate two districts, one from upstate and one from downstate. Upstate, she carved up the old 22nd, where Democrat Maurice Hinchey was retiring anyway. In New York City, she eliminated the 9th – won by Turner in 2011. That prompted Turner to run in the U.S. Senate primary, which he lost.

The loss of two seats in redistricting means that the partisan breakdown heading into this election is effectively 20 Democrats and 7 Republicans.

New York’s 1st District – Eastern Long Island including Smithtown, Port Jefferson and the Hamptons
Last flip: 2002
As Suffolk County’s population exploded in the postwar period, the 1st district changed hands a few times before bowtie-sporting Democrat Otis Pike won it in 1960 and held it for eighteen years. Republicans picked it up in the friendly year of 1978 when Pike retired; registered Conservative William Carney came along at just the right time, as Long Island turned sharply to the right. But Carney was done in by local issues, nearly losing to Assemblyman George Hockbrueckner in 1984 and choosing to retire two years later. Hockbrueckner ran again and won, holding the seat until the Republican wave of 1994. Michael Forbes found himself at odds with the national Republican party and became a Democrat in 1999…at which time he found himself at odds with the state’s Democratic party. Forbes lost the 2000 primary to a 71-year old library, allowing fireworks magnate Felix Grucci to recapture the seat for Republicans. Grucci choked down the stretch in his 2002 reelection bid, and Democrat Tim Bishop took advantage to win the seat.

Bishop won without much difficulty for the next few cycles, but drew a heavily-funded challenger in Randy Altschuler for the 2010 election. Altschuler pushed Bishop to the limit; after a lengthy recount, Bishop won by fewer than 600 votes. The challenger is back for another round and Bishop has taken some heat for an episode involving a fireworks permit and a campaign donation. The cynic can read between the lines and see a pay-to-play scenario, but there’s no smoking gun to prove it. Regardless of who one believes on the fireworks tale, Bishop’s internal polling has shown large leads throughout the cycle, as did the only public poll of the race – Siena’s in early September. But Altschuler has released two polls since then showing low-single digits leads. We could really use a return trip by Siena to see if the race has swung all the way to Altschuler’s favor; personally I can’t readily trust McLaughlin, a GOP pollster that shows a ridiculously close race in Queens’ 6th district, where Dems are going to win easily.  But for all that Altschuler has been hit repeatedly over outsourcing, the Bishop fireworks fiasco is the more recent big news in the district, and means that if Bishop is ahead, as we think he is, it’s only by a narrow margin.
Rating: Tilt Democratic

New York’s 2nd District – Southern Long Island including Levittown, Massapequa, Babylon, Brentwood, Islip, Ronkonkoma
Last flip: 1970 – but that’s for the SE Nassau portion; there’s not a clear line of descent connecting this district to its “ancestors.”
This is the closest thing to Peter King’s current 3rd district; it takes in the southeastern corner of Nassau County and the southwestern corner of Suffolk. It’s somewhat more Democratic than King’s current district, having voted 51%-48% for Obama four years ago. But Democrats failed to find a strong challenger for the popular King, a somewhat moderate and occasionally labor-friendly Republican who has always outperformed the national and state GOP ticket anyway.
Rating: Safe Republican

New York’s 3rd District – Northern Long Island including Commack, Huntington, Hicksville, Oyster Bay, Glen Cove, Port Washington, Whitestone
Last flip: 2000
This is effectively the successor to Democrat Steve Israel’s current 2nd district; Israel is running for reelection here, in a district slightly less blue than his current. Israel won his seat prior to the last redistricting, replacing Rick Lazio when he ran for the Senate in 2000.

Israel, whose focus this term has been more national ins scope as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, should win without a problem here against Army veteran, reservist and financial planner Stephen LaBate with a somewhat generic platform. But a word about Labate is called for: with his impressive resume, I anticipate he’ll be back to run for something else, presumably the state legislature when an opportunity appears. Long Island Republicans ran Lee Zeldin in a longshot Congressional bid in 2008; he fared acceptably in a very Democratic year and parlayed that into a relatively-easy state senate win two years later.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 4th District – Southwest Nassau County including Hempstead, Westbury, Long Beach, Wantagh
Last flip: 1996
Carolyn McCarthy rode a single issue – gun control, following the Long Island Railroad Massacre that killed her husband –  to Congress in 1996 and has won ever since, usually with little difficulty. Nassau County legislator Fran Becker kept it close (54%046%) two years ago and has opted for a rematch, but his campaign shows no signs of momentum, even with a district that on paper is friendlier to Republicans than the current version.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 5th District – Southeast Queens and western Nassau, including JFK Airport, the Rockaways, Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, Jamaica, Valley Stream
Last flip: 1960
There has long been a district in the southeastern portion of Queens, and it has long been Democratic. It was a more conservative strain of Democratic when it was still a white-majority district; by the 1980s it had an African-American majority and is now a very liberal district. The latest round of redistricting changed its number from the 6th to the 4th and is expanding it into Nassau County, but it remains a safely Democratic seat – one that voted 86% for Barack Obama in 2008. Gregory Meeks will continue to win easily here.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 6th District – Central Queens including Ridgewood, Middle Village, Elmhurst, Rego Park, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Flushing
Last flip: 1952
This was numbered as the 5th district for the last couple of decades, and consistently elected Democrat Gary Ackerman. The houseboat-dwelling Ackerman is retiring, and the district is set to elect a woman who embodies its fast-growing Asian plurality – Assemblywoman Grace Meng of Flushing.

Republicans have their most plausible candidate in decades here in NYC councilman Dan Halloran. A Theodist, he’d be the first Wiccan of any kind in Congress…but he’s not going to be in Congress. Winning a city council race with Mike Bloomberg atop the ticket is one thing; winning a Congressional race in a 63% Obama district is quite another. McLaughlin has a ridiculous poll here showing Meng up 36-33 with a preposterous 31% undecided. While areas like Middle Village lean Republican and there is a long history of elected Republicans from this area in the city council and state legislature, that simply never translated to the federal level, and it won’t this year, either.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 7th District – Lower East Side including Chinatown; southern Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, western Park Slope, Red Hook, Sunset Park; Bushwick, Cypress Hills, Woodhaven
Numbered as the 12th district under the current map, this is the triborough Hispanic-majority district in accordance with the Voting Rights Act. It has elected Nydia Velazquez since it was created in 1992 and it will do so again this year. Velazquez fought off a primary challenge from the Brooklyn Democratic machine and will face James Murray on the Conservative line next week, but no Republican opponent. Velazquez and Obama will break 80% here with ease.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 8th District – Parts of Brooklyn and Queens, including Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York, Canarsie, Mill Basin, Coney Island; Howard Beach
The Bed-Stuy district used to reach the waterfront in downtown Brooklyn and Red Hook, but was redrawn as an African-American majority Voting Rights Act district in 1982 and has easily elected Ed Towns ever since. But the increasingly inert Towns finally opted to retire this year, opening the door for Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries to win the nomination (after beating lunatic city councilman Charles Barron in the primary). The young, charismatic Jeffries will win the general with ease in this ultra-safe district and seems like a good bet to become an energetic and creative congressman. Having seen him speak in person at the DNC this summer, I’m  looking forward to watching his career unfold.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 9th District – Central Brooklyn including eastern Park Slope, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Brownsville, Gerritsen Beach
Last flip: 1922 (Flatbush portion)
Like the 8th, this district (which until now has been numbered as the 11th) is an African-American majority district and utterly safe for Democrats. Three-term incumbent Yvette Clarke is not the most brilliant Congresswoman currently serving, but she easily fended off a primary challenge and will dispose of general election candidate with no difficulty.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 10th District – Parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, including the Upper West Side, Chelsea, West Village, Financial District; Borough Park, Bensonhurst, Midwood
This is a district of two disparate parts: the chic and liberal West Side of Manhattan, and several traditionalistic and conservative Brooklyn neighborhoods. On balance, however, this is a safely Democratic seat. 10-term incumbent Jerrold Nadler does just fine here every two years in what until now has been numbered the 8th district; he’ll easily dispose of NYU economics professor Michael Chan this time around.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 11th District – Staten Island; Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, Gravesend
Last flip: 2010
Previously numbered the 13th, this is becoming one of New York’s more colorful districts. In 1980, longtime Democratic incumbent John Murphy was indicted in the Abscam scandal; he lost relection. Republicans Guy Molinaro and later his daughter Susan Molinaro held the seat without controversy, eventually passing it on to Vito Fossella, a young Republican on the rise. Fossella had held off a decent challenge in 2006 and seemed reasonably positioned to continue serving in the House indefinitely…until his 2008 DUI arrest in Virginia. That incident set into motion a series of events which revealed Fossella to have two families: one back home in Staten Island, and another in Virginia, where he had fathered a child out of wedlock. This wasn’t viable behavior for a Congressman; Fossella retired. That opened the seat up for Democratic city councilman Michael McMahon, who obliterated his GOP and Conservative opposition on his way to winning 61% of the vote. It was one of the Dems’ easiest pickups in 2008.

But it wouldn’t last. FBI agent and Gulf War veteran Michael Grimm challenged McMahon in 2010 and won a narrow victory, 51%-48%. Staten Island had reasserted its conservatism; this is the GOP’s most durable stronghold in New York City, after all. But it’s still a swing seat, and Grimm seemed to realize that: he kicked off his Congressional career by downplaying the importance of the conservative label and opted to join the moderate Main Street Partnership rather than the Tea Party Caucus. He cast the occasional labor-friendly vote in keeping with his representation of a district with plenty of working- and middle-class residents.

Except it’s rarely that easy in this seat. Grimm is the subject of a grand jury investigation into alleged campaign finance abuses – including funneling contributions from non-citizens into his campaign account through a rabbi’s aide who has since been arrested. It’s looking somewhat…well, grim…on the legal front.

And yet, Democratic developer Mark Murphy can’t seem to break through. Perhaps that’s because some district voters remember how his father John Murphy – yup, the Abscam guy described above – left office three decades ago. It’s not that Staten Island and southwest Brooklyn are any more Republican than four years ago; polls have shown Obama ahead in a district that McCain narrowly carried in 2008. It seems absurd that a candidate who has spent much of the year in legal trouble could survive, but two things have happened since our initial House ratings, when we put this at Tilt Republican. One, yet another poll has come out in recent days showing Grimm ahead by double-digits. Second, the hurricane and its aftermath has probably frozen local campaigns in place. Staten Island was ravaged by Sandy, with many flooding-related deaths. It no longer seems like this could be a late-breaking pickup for Dems; it appears Grimm will hold on.
Rating: Likely Republican (changed from Tilt Republican)

New York’s 12th District – Upper East Side, Roosevelt Island; East Village; Astoria, Long Island City; northern Williamsburg
Last flip: 1992
The “Silk Stocking” District on Manhattan’s East Side was historically a place moderate-to-liberal Republicans could win, unlike the rest of Manhattan. This was John Lindsay’s district before he became mayor of New York City; he was succeeded by Democrat Ed Koch, but the district went back to the GOP when Koch in turn was elected mayor in 1977. Republican Bill Green held the seat until 1992 – ironically, he was hurt by the addition that year of a part of Queens that was unfamiliar with him and which preferred fiscal liberalism but more conservative social stances. Green offered the opposite – the only formula that could work for a Republican on the East Side – and was defeated by Councilwoman Carolyn Maloney.

Over the course of Maloney’s time in Congress, the East Side has lost all of its Republican representation: State Senator Roy Goodman left his office in 2002 and was succeeded by a Democrat. Assemblyman John Ravitz retired from the Assembly the same year, failing to win Goodman’s Senate seat, and was succeeded by a Democrat. Charles Millard won a city council seat in 1991, lost a Congressional race to Maloney in 1994, and left the council in early 1996 – replaced by a Democrat. And City Councilman Andrew Eristoff won his seat in 1993 but left the council six years later, replaced by a Democrat. Republicans haven’t come particularly close to winning any of these seats since then – a long-winded way of saying that Maloney is quite safe here.

I don’t want to give short shrift to the eastern section of the district, however: Maloney has been well-received in the fascinatingly-diverse Astoria over the years and will likely adapt well to her new constituents in the northern part of Williamsburg, too.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New  York’s 13th District – Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood; Kingsbridge, Jerome Park, Norwood
Last flip: 1950 (East Harlem), 1954 (northwest Manhattan neighborhoods)
This area used to comprise several swingy districts. The northwestern portion of Manhattan was still electing the occasional Republican in the early 1950s; East Harlem was a three-way battle between Democrats, Republicans and the American Labor Party in the first half of the 20th century. These days, we’re looking at a district which gave Obama 93% of its votes in 2008. The action here is in the Democratic primary, where every two years someone tries to depose Charlie Rangel, whose campaign finance violations nearly cost him his seat this time around. But state senator Adriano Espaillat fell short, so Rangel gets another term. This seat will likely elect a Dominican soon…but for now, the one-time center of African-American culture in New York continues to elect one of the more storied African-American members of Congress.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 14th District – East Bronx and northern Queens, including City Island, Morris Park, Parkchester, Throggs Neck; College Point, LGA, Ditmars-Steinway, Sunnyside, Jackson Heights, Corona
Last Flip: 1968 (East Bronx portion)
Previously the 7th, this district is quite diverse, crossing two boroughs and comprising a mix of white, Hispanic, African-American, and Asian neighborhoods. Joe Crowley is running for his 8th term and he’ll win it easily in a district that gave Obama 76%. Crowley is an effective enough Congressman but is probably known more for his local operations as Queens Democratic chairman.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 15th District – South Bronx, including Fordham, High Bridge, Mott Haven, Hunts Point, Castle Hill, Tremont
The South Bronx has long comprised the poorest Congressional district in the county. It was also Barack Obama’s strongest district in 2008, as he beat John McCain 95%-5% here; many precincts failed to give McCain a single vote. Jose Serrano and his moustache have always topped 90%; 2012 will be no different.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 16th District – Northern Bronx and Lower Westchester, including Riverdale, Woodlaw, Williamsbridge, Wakefield, Eastchester, Baychester; Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Scarsdale, Mamaroneck
Last flip: 1988 (lower Westchester portion)
Lower Westchester still has its Republican strongholds – eastern Yonkers and Eastchester in particular, and many of the suburbs in this part of the county voted for Republican Rob Astorino when he won the county executive seat in 2009. The north Bronx section includes Woodlawn, which was fond of John McCain in 2008. But on balance, this district is very Democratic, supporting Obama with 73% in 2008 and consistently electing Democrats to federal and state offices.

Eliot Engel is forever dealing with significant changes to his district’s boundaries; for the last 10 years his 17th district included most of Rockland. But he has won each permutation with little difficulty; his only really competitive general election came in 2002 when he received Rockland and faced its county executive  Scott Vanderhoef. But even then, Engel won 63%-34%. He’s utterly safe.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 17th District – Central/northwest Westchester and Rockland, including Peekskill, Croton-on-Hudson, Ossining, Mount Kisco, Chappaqua, Tarrytown, White Plains
Last flip: 1988 (central Westchester portion), 2010 (northern Rockland/Westchester portion)
A collection of classic New York City suburbs, this would have been solidly Republican 20-30 years ago. Nowadays, Republicans still win plenty of local elections, but they struggle in state and federal contests. The fast-growing Hasidic bloc vote in central Rockland is ever more influential in local contests but is not going to affect a Congressional race, especially one where both candidate are socially liberal. 

This is a rather different district than those Nita Lowey has represented for the last 24 years; just under half comes from her current 18th district. But Lowey is exceedingly popular in the areas should already represents, and will adapt easily enough to the northern towns which have been added – some of which are very Democratic. On balance, this is still a Democratic district (58% for Obama) but it’s a few points redder than the one Lowey is currently has. For the first time in ages, she drew a respectable Republican challenger in Rye Town Supervisor Joe Carvin, a moderate who says he voted for Obama in 2008.

We initially rated this Likely Dem, given the geographic changes and Carvin’s ability to spend loads of money (he’s a hedge fund manager). But he never seemed to make headway, and Sandy has shifted attention away from the campaign – Metro-North is still restoring rail service to this commuter district, and power outages remain. Lowey will win another term without much trouble. She’s now 75 and had a health scare in recent years; she’ll be atop retirement watch lists next year – a retirement which some believe could provide an opening for the start of Chelsea Clinton’s political career.
Rating: Safe Democratic (changed from Likely Democratic)

New York’s 18th District – Mid-Hudson Valley including Poughkeepsie, Beacon, Cold Spring, Brewster, Somers, Bedford, Newburgh, Middletown, Port Jervis
Last flip: 2010
This district – where the Within the Margin duo grew up – comprises the next layer of suburbs, with plenty of NYC commuters, affluent millionaires in northeast Westchester, post-industrial cities – some emerging as tourist desinations, like Beacon, and some struggling mightily with drugs and gangs, like Newburgh – and robust farmland in the Black Dirt country of western Orange County. These places were strongly Republican for the first century or so of the party’s existence, but in the 1964 LBJ landslide Democrats captured both Hudson Valley districts. By 1972, both seats had returned to Republican hands and would remain so into the 21st century. One of these districts still exists in a similar form and will continue to do so as this new 18th district, a true marginal district (52% for Obama in 2008). It includes more cities than the previous version, but it lost some Democratic towns in northeast Westchester; all told about one-quarter of the district’s voters are new to Hayworth.

In 2006, Democrats captured it in their national landslide as John Hall edged out six-term incumbent Sue Kelly. Hall won easily in 2008, but Republican came after the district hard in 2010 and reclaimed it with a 53%-47% win for Nan Hayworth. For most of the next two years, local and national media went out of their way to paint Hayworth as the new Sue Kelly – the female suburban moderate. But Kelly really wasn’t particularly moderate in her final terms, and Hayworth  hasn’t been, either, with little daylight between her positions on taxes and spending and those of the Tea Party.

Sean Maloney, a former Clinton and Spitzer staffer, was recruited by the DCCC as this race became a major front in the battle for control of the House of Representatives. With support from organized labor he comfortably won the primary as the only candidate who could compete across the district’s four counties. Maloney has regional ties but didn’t live in the district; he has been attacked as a carpetbagger and for his role in the Spitzer administration’s Troopergate debacle. But his Cinton connection provides legitimacy for his economic message, and his fundraising prowess allows him to get the word out. He has hit Hayworth for being little different from the Tea Partiers in Congress. If he didn’t eschew traditional retail campaigning, I think he might win. But his focus on the airwaves makes for an incomplete push, and with power outages across the district after Sandy, he may have run out of time to get it done.
Rating: Tilt Republican

New York’s 19th District – Upper Hudson Valley and Catskills, including Oneonta, Monticello, Kingston, Middleburgh, Canajoharie, Hudson
Last Flip: 1974 (Ulster and Sullivan), 2010 (most of the rest)
I’ve lived in this district (which has been numbered the 20th until now) for the last 4.5 years, so I can vouch for its physical beauty – and for its newfound political competitiveness. This district’s predecessors elected Republicans decade after decade until Democrat Edward Pattison broke through in the Watergate landslide year of 1974. Pattison lost in 1978, and Dems rarely even came close again until 2006, when Kirsten Gillibrand beat John Sweeney. Gillibrand destroyed Sandy Treadwell two years later, was appointed to Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate seat, and was succeeded by Scott Murphy when the Democrat won a tight special election. Murphy couldn’t hold on in the 2010 wave, losing 55%-45%. Veteran and West Point professor Chris Gibson pulled away at the end for a comfortable win.

The redrawn district gave Obama 53% in 2008, with newly-added Ulster being the strongest Democratic county. It’s also Democratic candidate Julian Schreibman’s home turf. Columbia County is Gibson’s home turf and tends to be strongly Democratic in federal elections. Greene, Schoharie, Delaware and western Montgomery counties are GOP-friendly; Rensselaer County is winnable for Democrats. Outside of Ulster and Sullivan, Republicans maintain the edge in most local and state elections.

Gibson is more moderate than his freshman neighbor to the south, Nan Hayworth. He’s also more articulate. But the court-drawn map for the new 19th only includes 40% of his old territory, and he polls much worse in these areas. His campaign has released polls showing double-digits leads, but the recent Siena poll showed  Schreibman within two points. One tends to trust the public polls more than campaign polls, so it appears Schreibman is closing. Gibson showed he was a finished in 2010 with the wind at his back; it remains to be seen if the Democrat can get over the top in a neutral year. I think Gibson has done what he needed in order to distance himself from the extreme conservative of fellow House Republicans, but the momentum appears to be with Schreibman.
Rating: Tilt Republican

New York’s 20th District – Capital Region, including Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs
Last flip: 1958 (Schenectady, Amsterdam), 1970 (Albany), 2010 (Saratoga)
The capital region’s cities range from slightly Democratic (Amsterdamn) to extremely Democratic (Albany). The area’s suburbs have mostly trended blue in recent decades. The more rural areas comprise some very GOP-friendly territory, but they’re always going to be outvoted in a district that orbits Albany. This district’s predecessors have elected Congressman with very long and effective careers, from conservative Democrat Sam Stratton to the moderate Mike McNulty to the liberal Paul Tonko, who first won in 2008. Tonko saw his share of the vote drop to 59% in 2010, but it will rise back above the 60% this time around.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 21st District – North Country, including Watertown, Potsdam, Plattsburgh, Glens Falls, Johnstown
Last flip: 2009 (northern/western portions), 2010 (Warren/Washington/Essex/Saratoga)
This is the Adirondack district, though it stretches beyond the park’s borders somewhat to the west and south. It voted narrowly for Obama in 2008 (and its predecessor for Gore in 200) but the GOP held it for quite a long time: from the Civil War era until losing a 2009 special election after longtime Republican incumbent John McHugh was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama. After more than a century of safely belonging to the same party, the district is now in the midst of its third consecutive close election.

How did Democrat Bill Owens come to capture this once-safe territory? Republican nominated Deirdre Scozzafava, a moderate North Country Assemblywoman, for ’09 special. At the peak of the Tea Party’s ascendance, conservatives were feeling their oats and weren’t happy to have a moderate as the standard-bearer. They rallied behind accountant and businessman Doug Hoffman, who received the Conservative Party nomination and rode a grassroots insurgency to blow past Scozzafava in the polls. She eventually withdrew from the race after weeks of being berated by her party’s right wing, and endorsed Owens with just a few days before the election. In the midst of all the shouting, Owens kept trucking along. Scozzafava’s share of the vote plummeted to just under 6% on the Republican line on Election Night, Hoffman hit 46% on the Conservative line, and Owens won with 48%.

In 2010, national Republicans set about correcting the matter. They recruited businessman Matt Doheny and duly nominated him…while Hoffman ran once again on the Conservative line. This time, Hoffman finished a distant 3rd, with 6%. Owens edged out Doheny by a point, 47.5%-46.4% in what was one of the unlikelier Democratic holds coming into the cycle.

This time, it’s an Owens-Doheny rematch – sans third wheel – in the redrawn district, and polling consistently shows Owens with an edge. He is running a decidedly conservative campaign that matches his voting record, and appeared set to win again, with both public and private polls showing solid leads for Owens. But the final Siena poll, released this past week, is showing movement for Doheny, essentially closing the gap. Owens still has the edge, but if he’s not sealing the deal with the appreciable number of undecideds in this race, Doheny will squeak to victory.
Rating: Tilt Democratic

New York’s 22nd District – Central New York, including Rome, Utica, Little Falls, Cortland, Norwich, Binghamton
Last Flip: 1974 (Binghamton), 2010 (rest of the district)
This is mostly the successor to the 24th district, though Binghamton comes from Maurice Hinchey’s dismantled 22nd. It covers what is sometimes known as the Leatherstocking Country – overlapping with parts of the Mohawk Valley and the Southern Tier. The region is generally Republican but not particularly ideological; as a result, the GOP tends to win local elections but faces tougher sledding at the federal level when voters must reckon with the conservatism of the national party. Moderate Republican Sherwood Boehlert held the seat with ease for 24 years; when he retired in 2006 the Democrats rode a prize recruit, district attorney Michael Arcuri, to a fairly comfortable victory. But unlike most Democrats elected that year, he actually had a harder time in 2008 and only beat businessman Richard Hanna 52%-48%.   Hanna returned in 2010, and in the midst of the GOP wave beat out Arcuri 53%-47%.

Hanna has staked out ground as perhaps the most moderate Republican in Congress both in tone and ideology. He even encouraged women to donate to Democrats, saying his party has nothing to offer women at this time. That seems likely to earn him a strong primary challenge from the right in 2012; this year he escaped with negligible opposition in the nominating contest. Democrats, meanwhile, nominated Dan Lamb, a Hinchey staffer. Lamb should be able to parlay the Hinchey name to a decent showing in Binghamton and Broome County, where Hanna is unknown. But elsewhere, Hanna should cruise; he’s well-funded and he fits pretty well his district, which was slightly improved (from his perspective) in redistricting; it’s now a district where McCain won very narrowly, as opposed to the previous Obama 50%-48% version. Lamb doesn’t seem to have gained traction.
Rating: Safe Republican

New York’s 23rd District – Southern Tier and western Finger Lakes, including Jamestown, Olean, Corning, Elmira, Geneva, Ithaca
Last flip: 1974 (Ithaca), 2004 (Jamestown), 2010 (rest of the district)
This is the successor to the Southern Tier’s 29th district, though Ithaca comes from Hinchey-land, Jamestown from the old 27th and Geneva from the old 24th. As such Republicans will always be favored here; there is not much of a Democratic bench outside the deep-blue stronghold of Ithaca and Tompkins County, and Democrats who hail from that region will be tarred as being too liberal for the rest of the district. Tom Reed easily picked up the old 29th in 2010 after freshman Democrat Eric Massa resigned amidst a sexual harassment scandal. The former Corning mayor faces off with Tompkins County legislator Nate Shinagawa, who has not demonstrated that he’s closing in on Reed. The new district is more Democratic than the one Reed originally won; it voted narrowly for Obama in 2008. But Reed fit in fine with the original version and seems to be motoring along without a hitch in the new one.
Rating: Safe Republican

New York’s 24th District – Syracuse area and eastern Finger Lakes, including Ontario, Oswego and Auburn
Last flip: 2009 (Oswego), 2010 (rest of the district)
Syracuse has historically been a GOP-friendly upstate city, but it has gradually come to stop defining itself by voting against New York City. The ‘cuse gave 76% of its votes to Obama four years ago, and Democratic presidential candidates have steadily increased their share of surrounding Onondaga County over the last two decades. So much so, in fact, that many people considered the old 25th district to effectively be a safe seat for Democrats once Dan Maffei succeeded longtime moderate Republican Jim Walsh in 2008. But just two years later, Maffei suffered a narrow defeat at the hands of Ann Marie Buerkle, returning the seat to GOP hands. 

Buerkle campaigned as a very conservative candidate and has voted like one; she has generally been considered one of the GOP’s most vulnerable members throughout this cycle. She’s not a great fundraiser, either. Maffei is back to reclaim his old seat. But what I thought would be slam dunk has been much tougher than expected for the former Congressman. Polling shows a tight race; with the latest Siena offering showing a 44-44 tie. It’s worth pointing out that polls also consistently show Green Party candidate Ursula Rozum garnering 5-8% of the vote. Typically third-party candidates underperform their polling on Election Day, but Maffei has to be concerned that he’s losing votes on his left flank, all the while being blasted by Buerkle for being too liberal himself. Maffei is playing on blue turf (56% Obama) and has shown the ability to win comfortably under great conditions and lose by the narrowest of margins under hostile conditions. He remains the favorite, but we spent the year assuming this race would be over by now.
Rating: Lean Democratic

New York’s 25th District – Rochester area including Irondequoit, Brighton, and Brockport
Last flip: 1986
The old 28th district was the most ridiculous in New York state, stretching from Rochester to Buffalo and doing so via a narrow coastal pathway along Lake Ontario. The judge who drew the state’s new map sought compactness and cohesion of communities of interest, so the new district now includes all of Rochester and is entirely contained with Rochester’s Monroe County. It no longer contains a largely-African American section of Buffalo, so it’s not as Democratic as before. But it’s still pretty blue – Obama won the new version 59%-40%.

Louise Slaughter is 83 years old and facing a somewhat tougher district, so Republicans targeted her for the first time ages. They recruited Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, who has proven popular in Monroe County. But her fiscal conservatism is less appreciated in federal races, and her early vagueness in answering basic questions about major federal legislation did not earn her the appreciation of the press corps.

And Slaughter is well-liked here. Despite breaking her leg earlier this year, keeping her off the campaign trail just when she needed to meet new constituents, she has consistently led the few polls in this district by a pretty good margin – one by five points, the other three by ten points. Brooks might be viable when Slaughter retires if she sharpens her command of federal issues – or at least her willingness to take a position on them – but in the meantime, Slaughter appears to have another term in her.
Rating: Likely Democratic

New York’s 26th District – Buffalo area including Niagara Falls, Tonawanda, Amherst, Cheektowaga, Lackawanna
Last flip: 2004
Usually-Democratic Buffalo elected moderate Republican Jack Quinn to Congress for a number of years, but Democrats regained his seat upon his retirement in 2004. Since then, Democrat Brian Higgins has won with ease, even as the district registered a relatively small gain for Obama in 2008 and Carl Paladino swept the region two years ago. Now, redistricting has given Higgins the rest of Buffalo (previously a significant section of the city was connected to Rochester) while removing marginal Chautauqua County and a conservative swath of southern Erie County. His district is more compact and much more Democratic; at 63% Obama, we won’t be seeing Republicans compete here any time soon.
Rating: Safe Democratic

New York’s 27th District – Western New York including Lockport, Hamburg, Orchard Park, Batavia, Geneseo, Canandaigua
Last flip: 2011
Formerly numbered the 26th, this district focuses on the GLOW Region (Geneseo, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming counties) which is upstate New York’s most conservative region. It also includes the further reaches of Buffalo’s suburbs. Traditionally a Republican district, Democrats were competitive in 2006 and 2008 but fell short. It seemed like Chris Lee was consolidating his grip, but then a taking-shirtless-photos-of-himself-and-sending-them-to-people-besides-his-spouse scandal occurred in early 2011. Lee resigned very quickly rather than letting any more shoes drop, and Republicans set about replicating their divided-party drama for the special election (see New York’s 21 district, above). Republican Assemblywoman Jane Corwin was deemed insufficiently conservative by some of the Republican base, even though she had the Conservative nomination. Local septuagenarian billionaire and industrialist Jack Davis, who had run as a Democrat in 2006 and 2008,  launched an independent campaign that garnered Tea Party support. Corwin’s team melted down as the election drew near, while the Democrat Kathy Hochul was unflappable. The Erie County clerk’s laserlike focus on Republican efforts to replace Medicare with a voucher system was effective in an aging district, and she won 47%-42% in one of the more surprising special election results in recent memory. 

Hochul’s political chops probably could have gotten her reelected in that district even without split opposition. But she was hurt mightily by the new maps, which swapped in a lot of conservative territory from southern Erie County. Those voters know her from her time as county clerk, but they’re not necessarily looking to send a Democrat to Congress. The district lost some of the Rochester suburbs where she did well in the special election, too. It’s now a 54% McCain district, about two points redder than the version she won last year.

But Republican can’t count on the pickup. They nominated Chris Collins, the former Erie County Executive. Collins was considered an up-and-coming star…until losing his bid for reelection last year. An abrasive figure, Collins has little crossover appeal, whereas Hochul has proven her ability to win in Republican areas. With polling effectively tied and little seeming to affect the race in terms of candidate mistakes or coups, we give the edge to the candidate on friendlier ground, and that’s Collins. But his is a very narrow advantage indeed.
Rating: Tilt Republican

Summary: No net change; 1 Democratic pickup, 1 Republican pickup (new total: 20 Democrats, 7 Republicans)

 

New projection: 53 Democrats, 47 Republicans – no net change

When we first posted our race-by-race Senate ratings in mid-October, we concluded that Republicans were looking at a net gain of one seat, for a 52-48 Democratic majority come January (down from their current 53-47 edge). Since then, several Senate races have shifted unmistakably in favor of Democratic candidates. We’re shifting some of our ratings appropriately. In one case – Indiana – we’re moving from Tilt Republican to Tilt Democratic. This makes it a Democratic pickup and gives them three pickups (along with Massachusetts and presumably Maine, if the independent Angus King caucuses with Dems as expected). We have three Rep pickups right now (Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota) so the arithmetic is simple: no net change in the 2013 Senate. Democrats would consider that a huge win, considering the difficult map they faced coming into this year’s Senate elections. It’s also worth noting that we consider Montana and North Dakota each to be a on knife’s edge – if the Republican is favored, it’s by the smallest of margins. Let’s look at what’s prompting our changes in each state.

 

Indiana
Republican Treasurer Richard Mourdock has never held more than the narrowest of leads here, and has occasionally trailed Democratic Congressman Joe Donnelly. The ultra-conservative Mourdock has always had limited crossover appeal to independents, and alienated some of the state’s Republicans by defeating longtime senator and widely-respected statesman Dick Lugar in the primary. But since our original Tilt Republican rating, Mourdock may well have sunk himself by declaring that it is “God’s intent” when a pregnancy occurs resulting rape. Mourdock has been somewhat mournful in the week since, and has tried to clarify his statement. But at the end of the day, it’s a bizarre sentiment, and I doubt many Indianans believe that their God views rape and pregnancy quite the same way. Donnelly is hardly a progressive’s dream candidate when it comes to reproductive rights; he quite foolishly once bought into the distinction between “rape” and “forcible rape.” But it’s not hard to appear reasonable when Richard Mourdock is your opponent, and Donnelly’s careful campaign may finally be starting to pull ahead here. The last two Democratic polls each show a seven-point lead, by far his largest of the campaign; independent polling has shown a narrower Donnelly lead while Mourdock’s last internal showed the Republican ahead by a point . There are still a great many undecideds here, as has been the case all year. But it’s our gut feeling that those undecideds are finally seeing Mourdock’s extremism, adding it to his loud partisanship, and edging toward Donnelly. Add to that the anecdotes we’re hearing about GOP women refusing to applaud Mourdock at a recent GOP dinner – after giving gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence a standing ovation – and it seems like it’s all going wrong for Mourdock.
Rating: Tilt Democratic

 

Massachusetts
We are very cautiously moving this race to Lean Democratic from its previous Tilt rating. Generally held to be the most intriguing Senate matchup of the cycle, we never anticipated either candidate pulling away. But Elizabeth Warren appears to be doing so. She’s now polling over 50% with some regularity, at least one survey has shown that minds are made up enough that Scott Brown’s ceiling is lower than he can afford it to be, and Brown seems to be running out of ideas to attack her. We mentioned in our first writeup that Brown is a closer, and I expect him to be sharp in the final days of this campaign. But in 2010 he had momentum, and this time it appears he does not.
Rating: Lean Democratic

 

Nebraska
I don’t think either Matt or I really expected this race to tighten up; Democrat Bob Kerrey just didn’t seem to have it in him this time. The decorated veteran and former governor and senator is attempting a comeback after 12 years out of politics and trailed by double-digits in polls all year against Deb Fischer, the state senator who pulled off an upset win in the GOP primary as the Tea Party standard-bearer. But anecdotally, Kerrey is outworking Fischer on the ground, and he has found a line of attack that seems to be working with regards to a land dispute lawsuit by Fischer against her neighbors. And perhaps voters are feeling nostalgic for the 1990s? Either way, there have been five polls of this race since mid-October – one from Kerrey showing a five-point deficit for the Democrat, one from Fischer showing her still ahead by 16 points, and three independent polls showing leads of 2-3 point for Fischer. This is still her race to lose, Nebraska is fundamentally a solidly red state, and there are plenty of attacks for Fischer to roll out to blunt Kerrey’s advance in the final week. But we can’t call a race with two weeks of close polling safe, and in fact, we’re not even sure it’s Likely Republican. We’re skipping all the way to Lean Republican. If Kerrey shows signs of receding again over the weekend, we’ll change the rating accordingly before Election Day next Tuesday.

For dueling takes on the race and particularly Kerrey’s movement, read this and this.
Rating: Lean Republican

So to recap:

Indiana From Tilt Republican to Tilt Democratic
Massachusetts From Tilt Democratic to Lean Democratic
Nebraska From Safe Republican to Lean Republican