Is Matt Doheny’s lead “slim” or “commanding” or what?
I’ve taken a lot of heat the last 48 hours for suggesting that Matt Doheny’s lead over Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 Republican primary is “commanding.”
Doheny leads currently by roughly 600 votes, with just under 1,600 absentee votes remaining to be counted. It’s also possible — though unlikely — that a recanvas of the polls will turn up significant changes.
News organizations have described this situation in various ways.
The Associated Press has already declared Doheny the unofficial winner.
The Watertown Daily Times describes the lead as “slim” in its news pages, but has declared Doheny the winner on its editorial page.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise calls the race “close,” while the Plattsburgh Press-Republican calls Doheny the “apparent winner.”
The bottom line here is that barring dramatic developments, it will be very difficult for Doug Hoffman to close the gap.
He would have to win the absentee ballot count by a wider margin than he won Franklin County — and Franklin County was by far Hoffman’s most fertile territory.
So, as things stand now, I’ll stick with my assessment: Doheny’s lead is commanding.
But as Hoffman’s camp rightfully points out, it’s important to count every vote and get final results before anyone is declared the victor.
Tags: election10
you are correct in your analysis so stick with it. i say that because hoffman would have to dominate the absentees SIGNIFICANTLY to overturn the current “standings”. there are 3 chances that will happen: slim, fat and none.
hoffman’s only hope is that more errors, such as the AP gaffe, turn up.
As an aside, why does it take so long to count absentee ballots? The morning after the primary I read that there were 1800 absentee ballots to be counted. You now report 1600 remaining to be counted 24 hours hours later. That works out to 25 an hour assuming they work only 8 hours of the 24. If they are working in shifts until the count is complete. it’s only 8-9 per hour. Counting is pretty basic. Get one person to open envelops, another to sort the ballots into piles by who the vote is for, then count each pile. I would think it could have been done by noon yesterday even with a long coffee break.
I agree, it’s not about semantics, it’s about counting every vote.
I would say it is unlikely for Hoffman to prevail at this point, but some are still hopeful.
I think it is irresponsible for our local radio stations to refer to Doheny as the “winner” of the primary election.
That falls under the category of media bias. (Note: I did not hear NCPR refer to Doheny as the “winner”, although they may have. I am referring to another local radio station)
JDM — just curious as to which “local radio stations” you’re referring to?
Brian — WNBZ is holding onto the “apparent winner” line as well.
My dad was an elections commissioner and he said that absentee ballots almost never differ significantly in percentage from election day percentages, unless there’s a major last minute development (Scozzafava’s withdrawal in the special election and endorsement of Owens, for example); that didn’t happen here.
The Election Day result gave Hoffman about 49%. For Hoffman to win, he’d need over 1100 of 1600 remaining ballots… nearly 70% of absentees. So to call Doheny’s lead commanding seems fair to me.
Though I realize that whining about media ‘bias’ is in this case, as all too often, merely a tactic rather than a belief. Unlike the media’s blacklist against independent and smaller party candidates, this ‘bias’ has no actual effect on what happens. There won’t be an official winner until all the votes are counted, regardless of what media says what.
However, I do agree with JDM (imagine that!) that the election that’s not mathematically over should not be treated as such until all votes are counted.
We here at WNBZ have gone out of our way NOT to declare a winner.
The truth is, UNYTEA’s Mark Barie, as well as Assemblyman Will Barclay and several others, seem to have declared Doheny the victor.
As a news person, if the chairman of the group that — by many accounts — was responsible for getting Hoffman on the ballot is stating that “Hoffman’s campaign is no longer viable” (his words, not mine) — well, I need to report that.
I’m not declaring Doheny the winner, I’m merely reporting Barie’s words (that’s my job).
I’ve been through this conversation a number of times. Someone will ask me why I said something during a newscast, and I need to correct them — I didn’t say it, someone else did and I’m simply passing that along to the listener.
Chris:
I was referring to the morning news on WPDM.
I agree with Chris about UNYTEA’s declaration of Doheny being the victor. In fact, in my opinion, it was Mark Barie’s comments about Doug Hoffman’s first debate that sent his campaign on the downward slope rather than Hoffman running a lackluster campaign as we are now hearing from UNYTEA.
JDM — thanks for the clarification.
The reason for my last post was mainly due to some criticism I received this morning re: my report on Mark Barie. It’s interesting sometimes the way people target their emotions at the messenger — people were upset with my story, when their anger should have been directed at Mr. Barie.