Queens voter registration surge fuels Democratic optimism
We've all heard about that Obama surge in voter interest and more tangible measures of participation, such as registration and voting. It's real. The campaign of Jim Gennaro, the City Councilman who's running against odious reptilian wingnut Frank Padavan in SD-11, just emailed some astonishing numbers.
(Gennaro, with Democratic super-activist and City Council candidate Steve Behar to his immediate stage left)
Newly Registered Voters Provide Dems, Gennaro With Strong Advantage
New Voters in Northeast Queens, Excited by Prospect of Change at State and Federal Levels, Are 6-1 DemocraticFLUSHING, NY (Sept. 23, 2008) – State Board of Elections records for Northeast Queens show a wave of new voters registering for this year's state and federal races, with the overwhelming majority of them enrolling as Democrats. The new voters, clearly eager for change in the upcoming presidential and state legislative races, give a distinct advantage to New York City Councilman Jim Gennaro, a Democrat who is running to replace 36-year Republican incumbent Frank Padavan in State Senate District 11.
Between January and August of this year, 6,859 new voters enrolled in Senate District 11, according to the Board of Elections. Of them, 711 are Republicans and 4,083 are Democrats, giving the latter party a nearly six-to-one advantage with these voters.
Democrats also overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans in Senate District 11's overall enrollment, 88,494 to 33,123 (a nearly three-to-one advantage).
Conscious of this disadvantage, Padavan is not noting his party affiliation anywhere on his literature or Web site.
Yeah, if I were a republican, I'd try to hide that too. Unfortunately, there's that pesky thing called a voting record.
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2008 Elections | New York State Senate | Jim Gennaro | Queens | Steve Behar
Just curious
Submitted by Bouldin on 23 September 2008 - 7:26pm.
where exactly do I underestimate Gennaro? I think he's a very strong candidate; this just happens to be the first time I've actually gotten a press release from him.
Not you
Submitted by Dan Jacoby on 23 September 2008 - 8:27pm.
I'll give one example of how Gennaro is being underestimated -- Siena is (according to a TAP post) coming out tomorrow with polls from several Senate races, but not this one.
Why would they ignore this race, unless they thought (for some reason) that it wasn't competitive? They're polling the Craig Johnson/Barbara Donno race, which only makes sense when you look at how much the SRCC is pouring into that district.
Well...
Submitted by Bouldin on 23 September 2008 - 10:13pm.
...I can't speak for Siena and don't want to (and am not empowered to) speak for DSCC, but by every metric I can see, Gennaro is a really good candidate. He's arguably one of the hardest workers in our entire roster, and as Dan Squadron demonstrated, that makes a huge difference.
We have roughly ten competitive Senate races in New York right now. If I had to do a ranking, which I'm reluctant to do for various reasons, I'd put Gennaro near the upper middle of the pack. He's really good, and if hard work alone wins races - an arguable case - he's going to win.
Don't take that as a prediction, by the way, that's my gut instinct. But I feel good about this race.
Just for the record
Submitted by mole333 on 23 September 2008 - 8:34pm.
I believe I was one of the first and few to blog about Gennaro and suggest he had a reasonable shot. And I donated to his campaign months ago. I consider his race one that we can really win if we pay some attention to it.
Don't underestimate Gennaro
Jim Gennaro has a huge fundraising advantage over Frank Padavan, and he has a history of knocking on a lot of doors in order to win an election. This combination has overcome long odds in the past, and may very well work for him again.
For some reason, this race doesn't seem to be getting as much attention in certain "political insider" circles is maybe it should. Perhaps it's because Gennaro started this race with an enormous name-recognition disadvantage, and because Padavan is known for his constituent services. As we saw in 2006, however, plans made early in the race need to be adjusted, based on changing conditions.
Back in '06, the plan was to pick up one seat (Stewart-Cousins) and defend another (Valesky). It worked, but turned out to be less optimistic at the end than maybe it should have been. Over the course of the year, not only did Republicans manage to shoot themselves in almost every foot they have nationally (Bob Ney, "Duke" Cunningham, Mark Foley), but the party seemed to crumble in New York State (who, exactly, ran against Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton?). Yet there was practically no capitalization on this trend, either in fundraising or in strategy. If we had picked up even one more Senate seat back then, we'd be in the majority now.
That's right -- we'd have been two back, and after the Johnson and Aubertine wins the Senate would have been tied, with David Paterson as Lt. Gov. to break the tie!
What does that mean now? It means that someone who has been overlooked because of early disadvantages can still pull out a win -- and Jim Gennaro is just the guy to do it.