New York State held a special U.S. House election on May 24, 2011, to fill the vacant 26th district seat. The official results by party: Democratic 42.77%; Republican 32.15%; Tea Party 9.03%; Conservative 8.18%; Working Families 4.67%; Independence 2.14%; Green 1.06%.
In November 2010, the results in this same seat had been: Republican 58.99%; Democratic 26.39%; Conservative 9.41%; Independence 5.21%.
In the May 2011 election, the Conservative and Independence Parties had cross-endorsed the Republican nominee; the Working Families Party had cross-endorsed the Democratic nominee; and the Tea Party and the Green Party had each run their own nominee. The Tea Party nominee was Jack Davis and the Green Party nominee was Ian L. Murphy. The winning Democrat was Kathy Hochul and the Republican nominee was Jane Corwin.
25.08% of the votes were for a third party or independent candidate (not including cross-nominations). So that means that no candidate got a majority of the votes (the Democrat only got 42.77%.)
And on the opposite side of the Empire State is disgraced congresscritter Anthony Weiner’s soon to be vacant 9th district. If enough third parties on the left can enter, maybe the Republicans have a chance to regain their upstate loss.
One more minority rule winner — aka divide and conquer.
Are the TP and Con folks happy ???
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
You can’t blame 3rd partys for this result because the Conservative and Independence party percentages were all down from 2010. The Green Party (new) would have pulled from Democrats. Even if the Tea and Working Families partys hadn’t run candidates, and their total of 13.7% added to the Republicans, it still couldn’t overcome the Republican’s massive underperformance of -26.84%.
Either the Republicans ran a real stinker, or the Democrats ran a real charmer (or both) in this special election. Net: +16.38 for Dems, -26,84 for Repubs. MASSIVE!
#2. The district “Congresscritter” Weiner is from is extremely progressive and will probably not elect a Republican (let alone a liberty-minded individual) for a long time, no matter how many progressive third parties run candidates. The polls clearly show that New Yorkers still support Weiner even after his scandalous affair and do not want him to resign. Simply, the Democrats have a stronghold in Congresscritter Weiner’s district and will not let go easily.
New Yorkers are used to getting the weiner.
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The “Tea Party” candidate a very wealthy self-funded candidate who was the Democratic nominee in 2004 and 2006. He reputedly bought the Independence nomination one of those years. In 2008, he tried to get the Democrat nomination again, but the Kos-ites backed someone who had vague ties to the area (he supposedly was a substitute teacher who hadn’t been taking any jobs because he was campaigning). The Working Families “party” nominated him, but he finished 2nd in the Democrat primary to someone who actually had ties to the area,but ahead of the rich guy.
The Kos-ite didn’t bother to congratulate the winner of the Democrat nomination and disappeared. It turned out that he had been offered a job in Washington (the primary was in September, imagine the dilemma if he had won the nomination and had to choose between this great new job and running for Congress *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nduge*). The Working Families tried to replace him with the Democratic nominee, but was stopped in court. I’m pretty sure BAN covered this. So in 2008, there was a separate Working Families candidate, even though the party bosses wanted to back the Democrat.
In the special election, the rich guy “Democrat” decided to run as a “Tea Party” candidate.
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