Owens’ Victory and the Republican-Controlled Congress

Bill Owens

Bill Owens has come out victorious in the race to represent New York’s 23^rd Congressional District. Incumbent, Democrat candidate Owens had 76,204 votes (48%) compared to 72,435 votes (46%) for Republican candidate Doheny. Hoffman, whose name was on the ballot for the Conservative Party, got the remaining 9,536 votes (6%). About a month ago, Hoffman suspended his campaign and told his supporters to vote for Doheny in order not to split the Republican vote. In this toss-up race, Bill Owens came out victorious.

In Owens’ victoriy speech, he said that for the next two years his agenda would be “to your surprise, to bring more jobs to the North Country,” a common theme of his campaign. Clinton County Democratic Party Chairman Marty Mannix felt that Owens’ victory was large a result of him staying on the message about creating jobs and running a positive campaign. In Doheny’s concession speech, he told supporters that he had congratulated Owens on his victory and offered to help him.

Unlike last term, incumbent Owens will not be in the majority anymore since the Republicans have taken about 50 seats in the House, which gives them a slight majority. Owens said in his speech that he is confident that he can work with Republicans “just like [he] has been doing around her for 33 years.” He is said that working with a Republican-controlled Congress would depend on the “internal politics” of the GOP. He believed that “mainstream Republicans” might break from their more conservative colleagues in order to work with moderate Democrats, which Owens has said he is.

Doheny got more votes than Owens in Fulton, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lewis, Madison, Oneida and Oswego counties, but Owens made up these deficits with big wins in Clinton, Franklin and St. Lawrence counties. Owens edged Doheny by 123 votes in the portion of Essex County in the district. Overall, Owens has been victorious by a slim margin in this year’s toss-up election for the House seat in New York 23^rd District and it will be interesting to see how Owens will perform in the next two years.

Creating jobs was a big part of Owens' campaign and it proved to be an important platform for his success with the NY-23:

Bill Owens wins NY-23!

Bill Owens

Democratic candidate Bill Owens won re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York defeating Republican Matt Doheny in the traditionally Republican 23rd District of New York. The election results showed that Owens won 48.1% of the vote, Doheny won 45.8% of the vote, and Hoffman won 6% of the vote even though he encouraged his supporters to vote for Doheny. It proved to be a close race right to the end but Bill Owens managed to be victorious over his competitors. After the results were announced, he released a thank you letter on his campaign website thanking all of his supporters:

Dear Friend,

Thank you.

Thanks to your support, I was given the opportunity to serve the people of Upstate New York in Congress last year.  We beat the odds then, and because of you, we made history again last night!

Last night proved what I have known all along, the people of Upstate New York care more about commonsense solutions than tired partisan labels.  In order to move forward, we must work together.  Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all must bring solutions to the table to solve the problems that we all face.

The North Country has given me every opportunity I could have asked for and every day I will work to make ensure those same opportunities that I had continue for its residents who deserve nothing less.

There is much work to be done, but together I know we can achieve anything.

It is an honor to serve,