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Welcome to my blog! Over the course of the next few months I will be following the election of the 23rd congressional district of New York as part of one of my Political Science classes. This blog will look at this election very closely from the candidates to the voters and hopefully you will find this district's election as intriguing and interesting as I did. Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy it :)


Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Primary Results and Battle between Candidates

             On September 14, 2010, the 23rd Congressional District of New York finally found out who would be there candidates for this year's election. The primary results are as follows:


            The race between Matt Doheny and Doug Hoffman proved to be a close one in the Republican primary and remained undecided until this week. A count of absentee ballots and recanvassing of voting machines decided the winner. In the end, party favorite Matt Doheny held on to his lead over challenger Doug Hoffman. According to the New York Times Race Rating, the 23rd Congressional District is leaning Democrat and according to the FiveThirtyEight Model, there is a 74% chance of a Democratic win. Since Ownes ran uncontested, the real battle during the primaries last week was between Doheny and Hoffman
            How was Doheny able to grasp a small percentage of votes more than Hoffman in the primary election? According to the Watertown Daily Times in July 2010, Doheny was the favorite of 69% of those who voluntarily took a survey disseminated to Republican committee members and area activists. It is interesting to reveal that 53% of respondents said Doheny was “best equipped to unseat Rep. William L. Owens in November.” While these weren’t scientific surveys, it gives us a good indicator of what Republicans in this district are thinking.
            There is one definite area where Doheny excelled above Hoffman which may have given him an edge in the primaries – Doheny’s campaign finances. Matt Doheny finished with $813,214.95 cash on hand, by far the most out of the three. Hoffman, on the other hand, loaned $100,000 to his campaign and took in $13,634.66 on top of that. He spent $77,259.59 and closed with $262,813.08 cash on hand and $205,000 in debt. While these numbers were taken in April, it is clear that Hoffman was struggling with his campaign finances. Did this play a role? Maybe not, but it is interesting to see since party campaigning plays a huge role in elections.
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1 comment:

  1. BSchrammSeptember 29, 2010 at 7:06 PM

    I feel like $813,214 is an enormous amount of money for a single candidate to have for a Congressional campaign. I'd be curious to see what kind of contributions Doheny received and from what sources. I would think that he has a pretty centered political platform. It is also surprising that the incumbent is struggling in coming up with funds for his campaign.

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