I can’t remember the last time a non-partisan major national analyst gave Democrat Martha Robertson much chance of winning in my home NY-23 District against incumbent Republican Tom Reed.
Maybe early this year, when Robertson was the fresh face of the Democratic Party, the darling of Emily’s List, and a coveted Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) “Red-to-Blue” designee.
The past few months, however, have not been kind to Robertson. Scandals that surfaced early in the campaign never went away and sapped her campaign of any momentum. Robertson’s campaign seemed emotionally incapable of accepting responsibility for anything, and her hiding act from the media made her seem distant.
Robertson’s fat shaming attacks on Reed, which gained national attention, took a struggling campaign and turned it into something of a circus sideshow act.
Robertson seemed not to know how to deal with Reed’s “extreme Ithaca liberal” attack ads on Robertson other than to whine about it, which just repeated the message. It resonated.
Then the DCCC pulled the plug on TV ad time reserved for the last two weeks of the campaign, in a devastating blow, not just financially, but in campaign credibility. When your strongest backers walk away, it sends a message to voters.
Robertson had only about half the cash on hand as of September 30 as Reed, $498,529 to $919,391, so the loss of over $400,000 in DCCC spending hurts.
The true Robertson believers are seeing conspiracy theories everywhere:
And are blaming the messenger:
They’re even false-flag trolling our comment section pretending to be conservative and arguing that Tom Reed is not conservative enough.
But that won’t change anything, and things just got worse.
Add to the piling on, by Larry Sabato’s respected Crystal Ball ratings, which just moved the District from Lean Republican to Likely Republican.
Sabato didn’t downgrade the race to “Safe Republican.” That’s what passes for good news for the Robertson campaign these days.
But don’t count her out. Miracles happens.
UPDATE: The Cook Political Report is counting Martha out:
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