The Scozzafava Factor

by Brian Mann on October 31st, 2009

I spoke this afternoon with Steven Greenberg at the Siena Research Institute. Like political wonks everywhere, he was flabbergasted by the NY-23 roller-coaster.

“While common wisdom would say that most Scozzafava voters would go with Hoffman, 1. I have no wisdom and 2. this race has been anything but common.”

Amen.

But Greenberg pointed out one other interesting factor: A lot of voters will likely still pull the lever for Dede Scozzafava.

“Scozzafava is still going to get a percentage of the vote on Tuesday, whether it’ll be 5%, 10% or 15%. A lot of people have already voted absentee. A lot of people may not like the other candidates. Some people may not even know this new development has happened on Tuesday.”

Driving this weirdness may be the fact that a lot of artifacts of Scozzafava’s campaign are still floating around out there.

When I go to political websites today (Saturday) I see a lot of pro-Scozzafava ads from her campaign and from the National Rifle Association.

There’s no indication that she’s pulled out. Call it a zombie campaign…that could shape Tuesday’s outcome.