We’re 13 days out from the election to replace Chris Lee in New York’s 26th district. Democrats shouldn’t have a chance. Barack Obama only won 46 percent of the vote here in 2008 – it’s one of only two districts he didn’t carry. Democrats failed to win the race in the 2006 and 2008 waves. Ah, but the 2006 Democratic candidate, an industrialist named Jack Davis, has bolted the party and stayed in the race as the Tea Party candidate. And Democrat Kathy Hochul is running against Republican Jane Corwin over the Medicare reform element of Paul Ryan’s budget.
These are the latest ads in the race. Hochul s pulling the old trick of mentioning the third party candidate who hurts her opponent, painting them both as right-wingers.
Corwin is trying to make Davis unacceptable to conservatives by pointing out that he used to run as a Democrat, before he decided the third party route was easier.
But Jack Davis’s ad – the fourth I’ve seen – is the most interesting. This is a bouillabaisse of populist stances and zingers, and it’s actually coherent. It’s also more or less what he ran on in 2006! All that’s missing is Iraq War opposition, for obvious reasons.
Public Policy Polling, which tracked the NY-23 race that Democrats won after a conservative split, is putting out a poll from here today.
