Campaign Diaries

Obama’s decision to tap Rep. McHugh as Secretary of the Army will force the GOP to defend its blue-trending district in a tough fall special election. Yet, Democrats have a very thin bench in the district and their top potential contender, state Senator Daniel Aubertine, has announced he does not want the Democratic nomination.

This came as somewhat of a surprise since Aubertine was believed to be preparing for a run. (In fact, Republicans had already launched an attack ad, tying Aubertine to Pelosi.) He would not have risked his current job had he jumped in, and he was virtually guaranteed the Democratic nomination. So what happened? My best guess is that Aubertine realized that the job was probably a short-term one: New York will lose one to two seats in the upcoming round of redistricting. As the delegation’s most junior representative, the victor of the NY-23 special election will more likely than not be sacrificed.

While Aubertine’s decision will delight Albany Democrats, who are holding on to the tiniest of majorities in the state Senate, it is a substantial blow to the DCCC’s prospects of winning the special election: Without the state Senator, the list of potential nominees is decidedly underwhelming. (A Democratic committee will select the nominee in mid-August.) A similar recruitment discrepancy did not prevent the party from scoring an upset in NY-20 but lighting does not always strike twice. Republicans now have to be considered favored to win the special election.

The beneficiary of the Democrats’ recruitment bumps is Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, who has already been selected as the Republicans’ flag bearer. Scozzafava has a centrist profile - she voted in favor of gay marriage in the state Assembly and her husband is a labor leader - so much so that some local Democrats were hoping to convince her to switch parties and Scozzafava’s entourage openly acknowledged that they were considering running her as a Democrat.

Had Scozzafava faced off against Aubertine, ideological fault lines would have been blurred. While Scozzafava considered becoming a Democrat, Aubertine was close to joining the group of dissidents who were helping Republicans get a working majority of New York’s state Senate. Also, Scozzafava voted in favor of gay marriage in the state legislature while Aubertine opposed it. We now know that this match-up will not take place, but depending on whom Democrats nominate, it’s very much possible that Scozzafava could be the more liberal contender.

That makes her selection as the Republican candidate carry both great promise and great risk for the GOP.

On the one hand, Scozzafava is ideally placed to reach out to moderate voters, which her state party has failed to do over the past decade. For a New Yorker to be registered Republican is becoming almost as meaningless as for a Southern voter to be registered Democratic. Remember what happened in the NY-20 special election: While registered Republicans significantly outnumbered registered Democrats, many crossed over to vote for Murphy.

So can Scozzafava break that pattern and do in NY-23 what Jim Tedisco could not in NY-20 -  convince moderate Republicans to stay home? She has already succeeded in one step to achieve that goal: The Independent Party has endorsed Scozzafava, which means the Republican’s name will also appear on the ballot on that party’s line. (In the NY-20 special election, the IP had endorsed the Democrat.) This is a particularly disappointing blow for Democrats since IP officials had announced they would back Aubertine before the latter pulled his name from the running.

On the other hand, Scozzafava’s selection could easily blow up in the GOP’s face: Her moderate profile guarantees that she’ll face significant problems relying on her party’s conservative base. While this is a problem in any election, it’s an even bigger one in a low-turnout special election in which party activists and partisans tend to be the most reliable voters. How can Scozzafava excite these voters and ensure they turn out in high enough numbers that she can overcome the district’s blue drift?

Worse still for the GOP, the Conservative Party has already warned it will not almost certainly not endorse Scozzafava and look to run another candidate on its ballot line. The names that are circulating are certainly credible enough for this third contender to draw substantial support from partisan Republicans; if conservative anger against Scozzafava spreads (and support for gay marriage is certainly a no-no for many right-wing activists), businessman Doug Hoffman, for instance, could make it tough for Scozzafava to win the race, whoever the Democratic candidate.