Why GOP Lost NY-20 House Race

The Hill reports :

A fundamental urge for change and a subpar get out the vote program doomed Assemblyman Jim Tedisco's (R) congressional campaign, according to sources close to his bid.

It seems “urge for change” played out this way: Tedisco’s opponent, Scott Murphy, painted Tedisco as “a politian” while holding himself out as a “change” candidate in the mold of President Obama.

Regarding the “get out the vote factor,” The Hill says:

But the race remained a nail-biter, coming down to the thousands of absentee ballots that ultimately gave Murphy the win.

Tedisco strategists recognized after the fact that their absentee ballot program fell well short of Democratic efforts. Absentee ballots were a higher proportion of votes in counties predisposed to supporting Murphy than they were in counties Tedisco won.

But Republicans say they’re impressed with how they did in NY-20:

Tedisco's initial poll showed him leading by a wide margin, but only because he was better-known throughout the district. In fact, the generic ballot tests never showed anything other than a statistical tie.

"If you look at the recent voting in this district, having the race end in a virtual tie was pretty damned impressive," said one House Republican leadership aide. "Would I rather have won than lost in the end? Sure, but we should remember that this is the sort of Northeastern district where we got crushed in November of ’06 and ’08. Getting to a push is real progress."

Though they expressed disappointment at the results, GOP officials like National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said they saw progress being made.

"The Republican Party must be competitive in districts like NY-20 if we are going to regain our Congressional majorities," Steele said in a statement released Friday. "While we were unsuccessful in this race, the combined efforts of our candidate, the national and state parties and NRCC show that the GOP is going to invest the resources necessary to regain our majority in the U.S. House of Representatives."

The Hill’s entire report’s here.

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My comments:

I wish Steele and Sessions didn’t sound so satisfied with the result. A part of The Hill story I didn’t include noted the GOP has a 70,000 vote registration advantage in NY-20.

The Dems apparently worked harder and smarter than the GOP on the crucial absentee vote.

Steele talks about investing resources. Fine. But I wish I’d read something about “smarter and harder?”