All in all, it was not a good night for New York's Democratic representation in the House. We lost five races to the Republicans. But here in the 23rd district, things turned out differently. Everybody knew it was going to be a tight race, but I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that the Republican wave would drown out our congressman.
We elected Bill Owens just a year ago in a special election to replace outgoing Republican congressman John McHugh, who was appointed by President Obama to become the Secretary of the Army. The election was such a fiasco that I'm sure you all remember it. Teabagger Doug Hoffman forced establishment Republican Dede Scozzafava out of the race. Scozzafava endorsed Owens, but still appeared on the ballot, and drew away enough of the Republican vote from Hoffman to hand victory to Bill Owens. For the first time since the Civil War, New York's northern tier had elected a Democrat to the House.
The district has evolved in recent years from a red one to a decidedly purple one. Owens' margin of victory last year was very narrow, with just 73,137 votes (48.3%) against Hoffman's 69,553 votes (46.0%). With so much of my district willing to vote for a teabagger carpetbagger, and all the talk of a massive Republican wave this election, I was understandably nervous about the prospects of losing our district to Republican Matt Doheny, who defeated Doug Hoffman for the Republican nomination.
We had a few things going for us tonight, though. First, Doug Hoffman had tried for a short while to continue running on the Constitution Party Line, and with delicious irony, by the time he withdrew it was too late to remove his name from the ballot, so this time he was the spoiler collecting several thousand votes. Also, Democrats were looking very good in the high-profile statewide races. All the polls showed impending blowouts for Cuomo, Schumer and Gillibrand, whose opponents' campaigns had all lost momentum.
But the most important thing we had going for us tonight was the quality of our candidate. Bill Owens did not win by being a Blue Dog and hoping to sway moderates by voting with the Republicans. He won by looking out for the interests of the district, voting for the stimulus and health care bills, then explaining in common sense terms why he made those decisions. He won not just by helping bring jobs to the area, but by making sure people understood that he was doing that.
Let's face it. It sucks to lose our large majority in the House. It sucks a lot. But the silver lining in this cloud is that the Democrats who survived are a lot of our best Democrats. Now we begin the work of finding better Democrats to win those lost districts back. Democrats who know how to listen and communicate to constituents.