{"id":2127,"date":"2010-05-19T05:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T09:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2010-05-19T05:37:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T09:37:00","slug":"what-does-yesterdays-vote-say-about-ny-20-and-ny-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/05\/19\/what-does-yesterdays-vote-say-about-ny-20-and-ny-23\/","title":{"rendered":"What does yesterday’s vote say about NY-20 and NY-23?"},"content":{"rendered":"

All winter, pundits and pollsters have been predicting that Democrats in rural Northeastern seats —\u00a0 like Bill Owens from Plattsburgh and Scott Murphy from Glens Falls — are swimming in perilous waters.<\/p>\n

The tea party energy is palpable and in the 23rd congressional district Doug Hoffman is working deliberately to tap that passion.<\/p>\n

Hoffman issued a press release last night congratulating fellow tea partier Rand Paul, who won a Republican primary in Kentucky’s Senate race.<\/p>\n

“Rand Paul proved today that the party bosses can no longer hand pick their nominee,” Hoffman said.\u00a0 “The Tea Party movement and grassroots voters are changing the American political landscape one primary at a time.”<\/p>\n

Maybe so.<\/p>\n

But Democrats can take some comfort from the outcome of another key race, a special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district.<\/p>\n

In many ways, that was a contest that looks more like the North Country.\u00a0 Republicans saw a real opportunity for a pick-up and funneled more than $1 million into the race.<\/p>\n

But they lost handily, with Democrat Mark Critz snagging 53% of the vote.\u00a0 What happened to the populist uprising?<\/p>\n

Here’s Politico’s<\/a> take:<\/p>\n

Given the resources the GOP poured into the effort to capture the seat and the decisiveness of the defeat\u2014as it turned out, it wasn\u2019t really that close\u2014the outcome casts serious doubt on the idea that the Democratic House majority is in jeopardy and offers comfort to a Democratic Party that is desperately in search of a glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n

The district itself couldn\u2019t have been more primed for a Republican victory. According to one recent poll, President Barack Obama\u2019s approval rating in the 12th was a dismal 35 percent, compared to 55 percent who disapproved. His health care plan was equally unpopular\u2014just 30 percent of those polled supported it, while 58 percent were in opposition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bottom line?\u00a0 So far, tea partiers have been very, very effective at knocking off establishment Republicans.<\/p>\n

But we’ve yet to see clear evidence that the movement will produce real gains for the GOP.\u00a0\u00a0 This question will get a big test here in the North Country over the next five months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All winter, pundits and pollsters have been predicting that Democrats in rural Northeastern seats —\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2128,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2127\/revisions\/2128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}