As they brace for Tuesday’s primary, Republicans acknowledge they made some missteps. GOP worry grows over N.Y.-26 race

Republicans are growing increasingly pessimistic over their prospects in a race for a western New York congressional seat the party was once thought a lock to hold.

With the contest entering its final weekend, party officials acknowledge what a Siena College poll released Saturday confirmed: Republican Jane Corwin narrowly trails Democrat Kathy Hochul. The Republican has so far failed to capture a portion of GOP votes that instead might be cast toward Jack Davis, despite a cascade of late attacks targeting the tea party candidate as a Democrat in sheep’s clothing.


“Davis hasn’t been losing any ground, and that makes it tough for Corwin,” said Carl Forti, a GOP consultant and political director for American Crossroads, which has aired nearly $700,000 in TV ads over the last several weeks.

Republicans monitoring the race cautioned that Corwin remains competitive, pointing to the district’s GOP-friendly electorate and the heavy involvement of conservative outside groups. One senior GOP official said internal polling showed some signs of tightening over the last several days. Another called the race “tight as a tick.”

“I’m hopeful,” said former New York Rep. Bill Paxon, a past National Republican Congressional Committee chairman who is advising Corwin. “I’m very hopeful.”

But Republican fears are palpable. Over the last several weeks, GOP-aligned groups have poured $1.2 million into the race – double the amount of left-leaning independent groups. This week the party dispatched one of its highest profile figures, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, to record a last-minute robocall telling Buffalo voters it was “critical” that they support Corwin.

The party has launched an effort to lower expectations. On Friday afternoon, American Crossroads sent out an e-mail to reporters reminding them of the spoiler role Davis played in the race. “Let’s not be silly and ascribe deep ideological meaning to an atypical three-way House race in upstate New York,” wrote spokesman Jonathan Collegio.

But as they brace for Tuesday’s primary, Republicans acknowledge they made some missteps, including waiting to go after Davis, the wealthy industrialist who has dropped $2.6 million of his own funds in the race.

“We should have wacked him earlier,” said one senior GOP strategist involved in the race. “I think we needed to be a little bolder in going after him.”

Party officials said they didn’t immediately take Davis, who ran for the seat in 2004 and 2006 as a Democrat, seriously as a threat to Corwin’s candidacy. Corwin began her campaign running a rotation of gauzy TV ads introducing her to voters as as a successful businesswoman. The ads did not mention Davis, who was hitting the trail warning Buffalo-area voters that China was taking away their jobs.

Corwin’s hands-off approach contrasted strongly with the one former GOP Rep. Tom Reynolds took against Davis when he vigorously attacked his foe as a millionaire who wanted to “raise taxes” and “destroy jobs.”

This time around, with Davis gaining traction, Washington Republicans began to wonder: Continue ignoring Davis, or fight back?

By May, with polls showing Davis racking up more than 20 percent of the vote — including a significant portion of GOP voters — party strategists were growing frustrated, with some wondering whether Davis was a Democratic plant, injected into the race to siphon Republican support from Corwin.

“You can’t go anywhere without people screaming that he’s a Democrat,” said the GOP strategist, acknowledging that there was no smoking gun to prove Democrats were behind Davis’s candidacy.

The NRCC and other outside groups eventually began an anti-Davis blitz, but it might have come too late. GOP officials cite polling showing Davis’s poll numbers holding steady and acknowledge that their TV ads, which knocked Davis and Hochul simultaneously, have been awkward.

“I think we should have done something six weeks ago or a month ago,” said one official.

Just as troublesome was allowing Democrats to turn the race into a national referendum on the House GOP budget plan.

Three weeks ago, Hochul ran a TV spot accusing Corwin of supporting a budget blueprint that would “essentially end Medicare” – an attack that has been echoed in every Hochul ad since, and one that Democrats credit with turning the tide in the race.

That tack gave Democrats an issue potent among senior voters, who are among those most likely to vote in a May special election and who form a large demographic in the Buffalo-area district.

Only recently did Corwin find an effective response – firing back with a TV ad of her own, charging that Hochul was the one who said Medicare and Social Security cuts were “on the table.”

But there are also lingering questions about whether Corwin simply didn’t connect with the voters.

While her conservatism may fit well with the GOP-leaning district, there’s also a sense that Corwin, whose net worth has been estimated to be as high as $158 million, didn’t resonate with the area’s blue-collar voters.

“I don’t think Jane has made any huge mistake. It’s that she’s a wealthy, attractive woman and not everyone in the district likes that,” said one GOP source. “People want to see someone like them, but that never came across. That did come across in Kathy’s ads.”

Some Republicans point to a broader lack of aggressiveness that may have hurt the Republican candidate. While Corwin recited talking points during debates, Hochul displayed a lively, hard-hitting posture.

Above all, Republicans struggled with what is now turning into a replaying horror movie: New York special elections. Just like the 2009 race for a vacant upstate New York House seat, Republicans are contending with a third-party candidate who is sucking GOP support from them and providing an opening for Democrats.

The problem is in no small part related to the state’s unusual system in which parties select the nominees – a process that inevitably evokes images of backroom deal-making.

“The selection process isn’t transparent so it’s bound to upset some people,” said one official. “It always puts us in a spot.”

But there’s also a growing suspicion in GOP circles that New York Republicans are simply less monolithic than New York Democrats. In this case, Republicans were contending with Davis, who espoused a jobs-themed message that holds sway among some blue-collar voters who might have otherwise voted for Corwin.

GOP leaders waged a concerted campaign to avoid a split field. In the days following the sudden resignation of former GOP Rep. Chris Lee, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions and Executive Director Guy Harrison made regular phone calls to Mike Long, the influential Conservative Party chairman who broke with Republicans during the 2009 special election.

Long endorsed Corwin, but he acknowledged to POLITICO that there was little he could do to stop Davis, who has been willing to spend millions on the race.

“Jack Davis is a well-known person who has name ID,” said Long. “There’s nothing special about this.”