The DNC has now put out their memo/press release analyzing the NY-20 special election: “Murphy’s lead following yesterday’s balloting shows that the Republican Party has no new ideas, is tied to the failed policies of the past and that it is in disarray and faces an uphill battle in local and state elections in 2009 and 2010.”
The DNC also declares it a win for Obama: “This race became a referendum on President Obama and his leadership of the country and handling of the economy. Murphy’s showing in an overwhelmingly Republican district is affirmation of the direction the President is leading the country.”
Just as the NRCC’s memo pointed to all the ways that President Obama’s image was put on the line, the DNC talks about all the money the GOP put in:
In a district where Republicans hold a significant advantage in voter enrollment (42 percent to the Democrats 26 percent), Republicans still had to invest considerable resources to help Republican candidate Jim Tedisco – who still came up short on election night. The NRCC and the RNC each outspent the DCCC and the DNC, and major surrogates helped Tedisco fill his campaign coffers in a district in which as recently as 2004 Republican John Sweeney defeated his Democratic opponent by over 30 percent.
The DNC also rebuts the NRCC’s insistence that the plurality of registered Republicans in the absentee ballots will mean a Tedisco win:
The NRCC released a memo today that included an assertion on absentee ballots that defies logic as well as the results of votes cast at the polls in New York 20 yesterday. According to the NRCC, they believe that their candidate will prevail when absentee ballots are counted solely because more Republicans requested absentee ballots than Democrats. Given that logic, and the Republicans 70,000 voter registration edge over Democrats in New York 20, shouldn’t their candidate have prevailed last night? In fact, the more logical argument is that the absentee ballots are likely to closely reflect the votes cast at the polls giving Murphy the likely advantage considering that he already goes into the counting of absentee ballots with a lead.
The great thing about a 50-50 result like this is that it leaves both sides in a rush to claim victory and run the other guy down. And if nobody is rationalizing defeat, then everybody wins!
