| First, Senator Skelos, if you are reading this, please stop. I think you are doing a fabulous job and think you shouldn't change a thing.
Second, some analysis from Bruce Gyory at Newsday.
The battles will be fought in Republican districts, not on Democratic turf and therefore will resemble in miniature the 2006 race for the control of the Congress. Moreover, in light of these polls, it will be very difficult for the Republicans to justify spending money to try expanding the field of contested races to additional Democratic seats.
In the two Democratic seats polled: Craig Johnson in Nassau and Darrel Aubertine from the North Country held huge leads over their Republican challengers. Craig Johnson led Barbara Donno by 24% (49% to 25%) and Aubertine lead Renzi by 20% (51% to 31%). These margins were huge, considering that the Republicans' campaign committee was reported to have already spent $1 million on the two seats.
In my last blog, I speculted that Senator Dean Skelos would try to expand the number of contested Democratic seats beyond Johnson and Aubertine. Given that nine Republican Senate seats are being actively contested, it could prove controversial within the Republican Conference to spend money speculatively against Democratic Senators like Stachowski in Buffalo and Oppenheimer in Westchester, when Republicans like Padavan in Queens and Volker not to mention Alesi in Western New York are under pressure.
We've been writing about this for months now. After all the crowing about how awesome their recruiting was going to be, Bruno and Skelos mainly ended up with their second and third choices, not the top tier candidates that they were promising. It's been plainly obvious for quite some time, long before Bruno decided to ride off into the sunset and leave Skelos holding the bag, that this cycle was going to be fought for GOP seats, not Dem seats. Skelos apparently didn't get the memo though, as he has been spending loads of money on offense with second and third tier candidates while a good number of his incumbents, the folks that actually raised a good deal of that money, have been twisting in the wind. Skelos has been telling donors and others that they were actually going to win seats this year, but the results so far speak for themselves. They are in trouble and everyone knows it.
Dave Renzi isn't going to win back SD-48. Liz Feld isn't going to beat Suzi Oppenheimer. Andrea Stewart-Cousins isn't going to lose to the woman whose name I have already forgotten.
The battlegrounds are on their turf and they are playing defense from Suffolk to Canada. What's even worse is that they have to play defense perfectly. They have absolutely zero room for error. Given the way that Skelos has run the show so far, spending millions on longshots and neglecting his incumbents, I'd say that's a pretty tall order for Dean.
Back to Bruce:
Right now, in light of this polling data showing Johnson and Aubertine blowing away their Republican challengers, the number of truly contested races has been reduced to nine seats, all held by the Republicans. Also the Republicans have to be nervous that they have alredy spent at least $800,000 to bolster Serph Maltese in Queens and are in a tie with Addabbo. This may resemble the lost Spano seat from Westchester, to Republican strategists. A seat lost in 2006 after an 18-vote victory by Spano in 2004. Bottom line is that no matter how much the central Senate Republican camaign committee spent on the Spano seat, they could not overcome changing political demogrphics.
The net result of what this Siena polling data reveals is that if Skelos' political team proposes spending big political resources on expanding the playing field,at this point, it may be met with resistance from incumbent Senators. If they could not move the dial by spending a million dollars against their top targets Johnson and Aubertine, do they want to risk spending another speculative million dollars against second-tier targets? The Senate Republicans under assault (and their allies) may demand that the remaining resources of the central Republican campaign committee be focused on saving incumbent Republicans.
In 2006, this same pattern hit the national Republicans and what they found was that when you are on defense it is very difficult to resist the opposing political tide. You play great defense in one seat, but that opens a surprise hole in other districts. I feel great sympathy for Senator Skelos in light of this predicament. It is the consequence of the poor candidate recruitment ,which came under his predecessor's watch, who left in late June,when the candidate matchups were already set. It was not Senator skelos' fault.I understand how and why Skelos' team wishes it could change the map, but that is probably too late.
I have to disagree a bit here. I can guarantee you that Barbara Donno wasn't recruited by Bruno. This is Skelos' vendetta race. Craig Johnson is his white whale and Skelos and Mondello took it awfully personally when they lost the SD-7 seat. Sure, blame Bruno for some of the others, but the Donno is all Dean's.
That said, I think the rest of Bruce's analysis is spot on and echoes much of what I and others here have been saying for a long time. The Dems aren't going to lose any seats this year, no matter what Skelos says. This really is much like the national playing field in 2006. The GOP is on their heels and the potential exists for significant Dem gains on election day.
But the Dems have to be smart, flexible and opportunistic, much like the DCCC in '06. The one significant advantage that the GOP holds is financial (which is why I'd prefer Skelos to not abandon his current strategy). Dems need to raise money and quick. They are still in better shape than they have been historically, but this is their year and they need the funds to be able to exploit opportunities as they arise. They need to be able to spread the playing field and drain the other side for maximum advantage. The second to none WFP field operation needs to be able to pivot on a dime as well. Money is important, but so is a top notch ground game. Many of the GOP incumbents haven't serious challengers in years, maybe ever. In these races, the WFP team can be even more decisive as they have been training up great folks for quite some time now and the local GOP machines might be a bit rusty.
The long and the short of it is that we simply aren't losing any seats this year. All the battlegrounds are held by the GOP. All the money that Skelos spent on offense is gone and now he's got a number of imperiled incumbents who probably aren't too pleased with him right now. The stage is set for a big year, the year, for Dems and the state Senate. A little discord in the ranks is the cherry on top.
The next 6 weeks are going to be epic. I hope everyone has got some comfy shoes and a phone free nights and weekends. Can we capitalize on our good fortune?
We're all about to find out. |
