With two weeks until Election Day, Operation Counterweight in Upstate New York is approaching its home stretch. Below is an update for the 19th district, where Chris Gibson faces Julian Schreibman.
While Gibson is doing well in this Democratic district, Roll Call still rates it a tossup. Please donate to Gibson today for a last minute push.
As before, this analysis were prepared by a Cornell student who wishes to remain anonymous.
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This race still seems to work in Gibson’s favor. Gibson’s most recent internal polling finds him up 50%-39%, a decrease from last month’s 16 point lead in an independent Siena poll.
Even so, the Gibson campaign isn’t likely to be complacent. As Schreibman’s campaign has been quick to point out, polling of the Presidential race is a dead heat in NY-19, providing good reason to believe that this race has room to be tightened.
Several days before, Schreibman’s campaign emphasized an internal poll showing Gibson ahead by only 2 points. The fact that this poll did not release the details of its sample says a great deal.
Despite shifting slightly blue, there are two major indicators that Gibson fits the district’s unique interests well enough to make demographic shifts matter less than anticipated.
First, neither his personality, nor legislative emphasis in Congress have meshed well with Schreibman’s attempts to paint him as radical. Even retiring Democratic Congressman Maurice Hinchey disagrees with the image painted by DCCC attack ads. One DCCC ad has a particularly uncreative title.
Second- “Schreibman has always been running sideways,” looking to avoid providing a substantive platform and attempting to recast issues important to the Democratic base in poll-tested ways. In a local spin on this strategy, Schreibman has even tried to make an issue of Gibson’s early 2011 support for a local Nuclear Power plant. Who knew that topic was still on the table?
Contrast Schreibman’s campaign rhetoric with Gibson’s mid-September TV ad:
For more about Gibson-Schreibman, the Capitol Confidential Blog of the Times Union, an Albany area newspaper, has been providing unusually fair analysis of this race.
Although some local headlines have noted that Schreibman out-fundraised Gibson this month, Gibson’s early advantage still favors him in this race.
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