The National Republican Congressional Committee is getting an early start on the special election for New York’s 23rd District — so early in fact, that the seat hasn’t actually become vacant yet!
Rep. John McHugh (R) has been nominated by President Obama to serve as Secretary of the Army, but hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate nor resigned from his House seat yet. However, the NRCC has this new TV ad, running against a prospective Democratic candidate, state Sen. Darrel Aubertine — who hasn’t declared that he will be a candidate, either:
The ad has the populist tone we’ve seen of late from the Republicans — bashing the Democrats as the party of bailing out Wall Street, for example. They tried this in the recent NY-20 special election, which in the end was narrowly won by Democrat Scott Murphy in a district that was a toss-up to begin with, leaving an inconclusive verdict on this line of attack.
Another fun complication from this race would occur if Aubertine were to run and win. Remember that recent crisis in the New York state Senate, with a whole bunch of party switches back and forth over which party would control the place? It could happen all over again if Aubertine were to vacate his seat, which would give the state Republicans a plausible shot at picking it up and making it a tie for control of the chamber.
Late Update: DCCC press secretary Ryan Rudominer gives us this comment: “The Republican Party of No realizes they have nothing to offer the folks of the 23rd district so they’ve resorted to attacking an unannounced candidate in a campaign that hasn’t even started. That’s pathetic.”
