Campaign Diaries

In NY-20’s special election, Scott Murphy’s lead now stands at 86 votes. That might look like a small change since he posted a lead of 47 votes yesterday, but the numbers hide decisive developments that have brought the Democrat to the brink of victory.

Saratoga County has reported

As of yesterday morning, Tedisco’s stronghold of Saratoga County, which makes up a third of the district’s population and 27% of the absentee ballot pool, had not reported. While Murphy was performing better than he needed to in other counties, a strong Tedisco performance in Saratoga could have been enough to put him over the top.

Saratoga County reported its full results last night - and it was not enough to put Tedisco over the top: The Republican netted 163 votes, but that was canceled out by Murphy’s gains in other counties (see below).

Tedisco got 58% of the absentee ballots in Saratoga, which is better than the 54% he had received on Election Day. Yet, not only is some of that improvement due to the large number of frivolous challenges issued by Republicans, but it is not enough of a boost to compensate for his very disappointing absentee performance elsewhere in the district.

Yesterday, I detailed Murphy’s remarkably strong numbers in the five counties that have finished counting their paper ballots. Now, take a look at the three Murphy strongholds that counted hundreds of new ballots yesterday.

• Washington: Murphy received 56% of the Election Day vote, and 59% among absentee ballots.
• Columbia: Murphy received 56% of the Election Day vote, and a startling 66% among absentee ballots. The county still has absentee ballots to count.
• Warren:  Murphy received 56% of the Election Day vote, and 60% among absentee ballots. The county still has absentee ballots to count.

Now, all but three counties have finished canvassing their absentee ballots: Columbia, Dutchess and Warren. All voted for Murphy two weeks ago. In short: Expect the Democrat to significantly increase his lead as these three counties finished the process. By the time we get to challenged ballots, then, Murphy’s lead could easily top 200 votes.

(Indeed, remember that 1,300 ballots have been challenged and thus temporarily put aside - 700 of which come from Saratoga County. In other words, there are certainly enough ballots for Tedisco to have a mathematical chance of reclaiming the lead.)

Let’s say this again: Now that Saratoga has reported, Murphy is all but sure of winning this election if all the challenged ballots are thrown out! That is a startling reversal given that Tedisco is the one who is trying to throw out those challenged ballots - and it is Murphy who is trying to get them included.

The situation is exactly the same as that of Minnesota. Until the end of December, Franken was the candidate who was trying to get as many rejected absentee ballots counted as possible; but once he took the lead, the roles got reversed and Coleman was stuck arguing for the expansion of the universe of valid ballots. And Tedisco is in even worse shape than Coleman, since he himself is responsible for objections to a majority of the challenged ballots (in Minnesota, the GOP had little to do with the rejection of absentee ballots).

This is a lose-lose situation for Tedisco:

• If challenged ballots are not counted, Murphy is all but assured of victory win.
• If challenged ballots are counted, Tedisco has a mathematical chance of winning - but it’s difficult to see where Tedisco is going to net votes since Republicans have challenged more ballots than Democrats. With a conservative assumption of a 150-vote Murphy lead at the end of the Dutchess/Warren/Columbia process, Tedisco would need to win more than 55% of  challenged ballots to score a victory; he should consider himself lucky if he wins 50%.

In short: Tedisco better rethink his strategy of objecting to as many ballots as possible quickly.

Most challenged ballots will be counted

In another major development that occurred last night, Judge James Brand tossed out most of the objections issued during the absentee ballots counts. He sided with Democrats in issuing two major decisions:

1. A ballot should be counted when election officials unanimously overrule a poll watcher’s objection.
2. The application filed by a voter to receive an absentee voter can not be used as ground for objecting to a ballot. The reason: The determination that those applications are valid was already made weeks ago when the state Board of Election decided to issue the absentee ballots.

Most of the challenged ballots fall in the latter category. For instance, Republican poll watchers objected to the ballot of a 91-year old woman, saying that her claim that she was too old to go to the polls in person was not a valid reason to issue an absentee ballot. Under the judge’s decision, that ballot will now be counted. Similarly, Kirsten Gillibrand’s vote will now make her way in the final tally.

As I explained above, Tedisco’s main hope of victory is for challenged ballots to be counted - especially the 700 in Saratoga. As such, this ruling can be said to save his candidacy. But it is telling of how deep of a hole he has fallen in that he should take relief in judge siding against him: Many ballots that now will be counted were challenged because the voter had a primary residence in New York City or in Florida; the majority of those should go for Murphy - as should the ballots of college students that Tedisco has sought to exclude.

(Note that Democrats were very worried atout Judge Brand, who had a history of siding with Republicans in recent election lawsuits. That will make it harder for the GOP to now blast him as a partisan.)

We are now in the final stretch, and the election could be all but resolved in the coming 48 hours. With hundreds of challenged ballots now set to be counted, we will soon know whether Tedisco has enough support left to stage a comeback.