A Missed Opportunity in New York Senate?

posted at 3:38 pm on May 13, 2010 by Jazz Shaw
[ Elections ]    printer-friendly

If you were aspiring to a seat in the Senate and you found that your expected opponent carried a disapproval rating of more than half the state’s residents, you’d feel pretty good about your chances, wouldn’t you? I mean, as political opportunities go, that’s pretty much the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket of political openings. If you had anything to worry about, it would probably be the very likely case that lots of other members of your party would be elbowing their way in to thrash you in the primary. Well, apparently that’s not always the case.

Even as a resident of the Empire State who can barely remember the last time I saw Paterson appointee Kirsten Gillibrand in the news for anything other than her lack of fame, I was unaware of just how poorly she was doing in the public eye. A recent Marist poll shows that Ms. Gillibrand currently has a 27% approval rating, with 51% disapproving of her performance. If that’s not an invitation for a GOP takeover, even in the blue state of New York, I don’t know what is.

Only 27% of registered voters in New York State think Gillibrand is doing either an excellent or good job in office. This includes 3% who say she is excelling and 24% who believe she is doing a good job. 37% rate New York’s junior senator as fair, and 14% say she is performing poorly. More than one-fifth — 22% — are unsure.

And yet, it seems to be an invitation to the dance which nobody wants to RSVP for… at least not any of the top tier names you’d expect to see in the mix. The still well respected former Governor George Pataki took a pass on the chance, preferring to start up a push for health care reform and mull over a possible presidential run in 2012. Rudy mulled it over for a while – or at least pretended to – but chose to remain in the private sector. Several other high visibility names were floated in the press, but one by one they chose another path.

That’s not to say that the GOP won’t have a name on the ballot. Bruce Blakeman, Joseph DioGuardi and David Malpass have all expressed interest in the job. Fine Republicans, one and all, but I’m not going to scold you if you don’t live in New York and find yourself saying, “Excuse me, but… who?”

No matter. With approval ratings as bad as Gillibrand’s, they’ll probably trounce her in the general election anyway, right? Not so fast there, Skippy.

Despite Gillibrand’s less than stellar job approval rating, the senator leads her Republican challengers in the race for her U.S. Senate seat. When pitted against Bruce Blakeman, Gillibrand receives 52% of voters’ support to Blakeman’s 28%. One-fifth are unsure.

When it comes to Joseph DioGuardi, Gillibrand has a 20 percentage point lead. 50% of voters support Gillibrand while 30% are behind DioGuardi. Here, too, one-fifth are unsure.

And, if David Malpass were to win the Republican nomination and face Gillibrand in November, the sitting senator leads here as well. 52% of registered voters in New York State say they would vote for Gillibrand while 28% report they will back Malpass. 20% are unsure.

If we’ve learned one thing from state level politics, it’s that name recognition is important. People may not care much for the job Gillibrand has done, but when asked to pick between her and someone they’ve never even heard of, a sufficient number of them will go with the devil they know rather than risk supporting somebody who might be even worse.

For any of these candidates to break through, they’re going to need the money and ground game to get their name recognition and favorables way up in a relatively short period of time. And thus far, people don’t seem overly inclined to open up their wallets. Earned media isn’t going to do it for them. This is New York, and even in the somewhat more conservative upstate regions, the vast majority of local papers would rather cover a lecture series on the declining numbers of banded woolly caterpillars than admit that a Republican was holding a press event.

I know the NRSC is busy these days, what with all of the 2010 opportunities popping up around the nation, but Gillibrand is standing here with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Only a moderate amount of star power and/or cash should be required to push her over the edge. If the GOP lets this low hanging fruit slip away and they wind up one seat short of a Senate majority next January, somebody is going to be kicking themselves.

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