Is NY-20 a barometer of the GOP’s chances in 2010?

For Republicans to stage a significant rally next year in Congress, they’ll have to do two things:

1. Take back “their” red districts. These are congressional districts that Republicans lost during the 2008 Obama surge.

2. Take back a bunch of purple districts. These are the House seats that are competitive, but where GOP candidates have a legitimate shot at unseating an incumbent or two.

The must-do list certainly includes NY-20, now held by Democrat Scott Murphy from Glens Falls. He won a special election in the spring by a razor-thin margin.

In 2006, now-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand won the seat in an upset after former Rep. John Sweeney flamed out in scandals.

The GOP still holds a significant voter-registration edge and has a powerful grassroots infrastucture in the 20th district.

But here’s the wrinkle: A little more than a year from election day, they still don’t have a candidate.

That means no one building name recognition, raising money, building a team.

Meanwhile, Murphy has built a campaign chest totaling more than half a million dollars and he continues to use congress-on-your-corner style constituent outreach to build voter loyalty.

As Reid Wilson reported in The Hill, this isn’t an outlier: Across the country, the GOP still hasn’t secured strong candidates, even for races that should be highly competitive.

Republicans have touted 2010 as their comeback year, but Democrats point out that dozens of their potentially vulnerable incumbents have yet to draw major GOP challengers.