Scozzafava made a point of not endorsing Hoffman. So will her voters stay home or does Republican-turned-Democrat Owens have the chops to capitalize on the moment?
This seat was held by a Republican to begin with. Victory in NY-23 is hardly crucial for the Democratic Party. The real question is whether Democrats can use this moment to effectively rebrand the GOP among the Washington elite and mainstream media.
Today is a milestone: Republican politicians have lost control over their party. The torch has been passed to Glenn Beck. It will be a long time before they get it back.
UPDATE: Nate Silver on this morning's Siena poll:
Scozzafava's supporters in this poll:
-- Have a favorable view of Barack Obama by a 64-31 margin.
-- Have an unfavorable view of Hoffman 15-57.
-- Have an unfavorable view of Democrat Bill Owens, 19-50.
It's not quite so clear how Hoffman stands to benefit from this.
Although a majority of Scozzafava's supporters are Republican (about 62 percent, by my reckoning), it is safe to assume that they are mostly rather moderate Republicans, because almost all the conservative Republicans had already gone over to Hoffman. [...]
If I had to guess, I'd think that of Scozzafava's support, one-quarter of people don't vote, one-quarter vote for Scozzafava anyway, 30 percent defect to Hoffman and 20 percent defect to Owens. Extrapolating from the morning's Siena poll, that would produce a result of Hoffman 43, Owens 42, Scozzafava 5, with 10 percent of the voters still up for grabs. [...]
I think the enthusiasm/turnout side of the story may have been underplayed here and that dynamic benefits Hoffman
Like the Corzine-Christie race in New Jersey, this will come down to turnout. As PPP pointed out in yesterday's must-read, the GOP has a huge edge right now on voter enthusiasm. We better hope that changes before 2010.
UPDATE #2: PPP's Tom Jensen predicts an easy victory for Hoffman.
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