A Closer Look At NY-9 (TPM)

A couple of corrective data points on the NY-9 race, where Democrats seemed primed for a big defeat come Tuesday.

I mentioned yesterday how heavily Democratic this district is. That's true in general. There's a 3:1 Democratic to Republican voter registration there. But Obama only won 55 percent of the vote here in 2008, which is relatively low for a NYC district and was actually worse than John Kerry performed there in 2004. So it's not one of those hardcore Democratic havens in the city. That doesn't mean Democrats should lose there, but it does make it somewhat more susceptible to the prevailing political climate.

The second data point comes from a closer look at the polling numbers coming out of the district. Respondents there overwhelmingly think the country is on the wrong track, and Obama's approval ratings are in the tank. "It's hard for Democrats to win open seat races in places where Obama's that unpopular," PPP polling director Tom Jensen tells TPM.

The upshot is that while the Democratic candidate is far from the ideal candidate, it would be a mistake to pin the blame for this loss (if it turns out to be a loss) entirely on him. The district is a better bellwether than I realized, and a loss here would paint a very bleak picture for Democrats going into 2012.


— David Kurt

But according to the numbers, it may be less of a factor than it seems.

“I don’t see it at all,” Greenberg said, when asked about the “Israel effect.”

Siena asked voters to pick from five options to explain their vote, including the candidate’s party, position on Social Security and Medicare, whether they were endorsed by a trusted source, their position on economic issues, and finally their position on Israel. Only 7% of voters picked Israel, including just 16% of Jewish voters.

That may not be the whole story, however: Weprin’s lead with Jewish voters has collapsed from 21 to 6 in the last month. It’s roughly in line with the total 12% drop among voters overall, but may be more complicated to tease out. Jensen, for his part, doesn’t want to make any conclusions on the Israel issue without seeing more detailed results first.

But given that Weprin isn’t exactly a larger than life political personality, the latter may be doing plenty to inform voters’ views on the former — Democratic pollster PPP’s field research, still unfinished, is finding that national issues are dominant so far in explaining Democrats’ troubles.

“The eye popping number for me is that we may have Obama’s approval number as low as the 30s,” PPP polling director Tom Jensen told TPM. “It’s hard for Democrats to win open seat races in places where Obama’s that unpopular. Obama’s at 50%, I have no doubt Weprin beats Turner comfortably.”