Return Of The Hoffman Effect

Nate Silver has a preview of today's special election in NY-26 to replace disgraced Republican Chris "Craigslist" Lee, where the GOP and Tea Party candidates are splitting the vote enough to give Democrat Kathy Hochul a shot at winning one of the reddest districts in upstate New York.

If I were asked to set odds on the race, I would probably make Ms. Hochul something like a 2-to-1 or perhaps 5-to-2 favorite. A relatively wide range of outcomes are possible, from a double-digit win for Ms. Hochul to a win for Ms. Corwin by several points.

As to the interpretation of the results, one thing I’d remind the readers of is that the margins matter as much as the victor: if Ms. Hochul wins by a single vote, that tells us almost exactly the same thing as if she loses by a single vote. Also, Ms. Hochul’s share of the vote matters: the lower Mr. Davis’s vote goes, the more we can read into the results. As I noted two weeks ago, if Ms. Hochul finishes with a vote share in the mid-to-high 40s, that would be consistent with how Democrats performed in the district in the strong Democratic years of 2006 and 2008 and is a result that Democrats could be pleased with.

There is also some evidence that Republican plans to significantly alter Medicare, which has been the focal point of Ms. Hochul’s campaign, may indeed have made some difference in the race. In the Siena poll, voters were asked to identify their most important issue. Of the 21 percent who picked Medicare, some 80 percent said they planned to vote for Ms. Hochul (excluding undecided voters).

What’s tricky about this is that it isn’t straightforward to determine whether voters are prepared to vote for Ms. Hochul because of the Medicare issue — or rather, whether they were going to vote for her for some other reason, but emphasize Medicare to pollsters because she has also. Correlation may not equal causation.

Nevertheless, of those voters who identified Medicare as their top issue, just 50 percent are Democrats, and an additional 24 percent are independents. Since Ms. Hochul is winning 80 percent of those votes instead, that implies that she is in fact picking up some support from independents and moderate Republicans (of which there are many in this district) on the issue. 

And in a blood-red rural district like this, that's nothing short of amazing.  Combined, the Republican and Tea Party candidate still would win.  But split like this, Kathy Hochul has a real chance to win.  Even worse for Republicans, it puts the GOP plan to kill Medicare right back in the spotlight as the reason why Hochul has been gaining support here.

If Hochul is the victor here, House Republican support for the plan will evaporate and the Dems have a clear road map to victories all across the country next year.