County |
Shinagowa (D) |
Reed (R) |
Total |
% Total |
Allegany |
5,400 (36%) |
9,560 (64%) |
14,960 |
6% |
Cattaraugus |
11,450 (44%) |
14,680 (56%) |
26,130 |
11% |
Chautauqua |
22,042 (47%) |
24,558 (53%) |
46,600 |
19% |
Chemung |
15,080 (48%) |
16,291 (52%) |
31,371 |
13% |
Ontario (Pt.) |
6,983 (47%) |
7,807 (53%) |
14,790 |
6% |
Schuyler |
3,364 (46%) |
3,973 (54%) |
7,337 |
3% |
Seneca |
5,372 (48%) |
5,775 (52%) |
11,147 |
5% |
Steuben |
13,922 (40%) |
20,836 (60%) |
34,758 |
14% |
Tioga (Pt.) |
5,512 (39%) |
8,450 (61%) |
13,962 |
6% |
Tompkins |
24,264 (70%) |
10,201 (30%) |
34,465 |
14% |
Yates |
4,071 (43%) |
4,937 (52%) |
9,512 |
4% |
TOTAL |
117,055 (48.1%) |
126,519 (51.9%) |
243,574 |
100% |
The first issue is that there was 33,328 votes difference between this race and the Presidential race... Not sure if this is normal or not. The table below shows where Obama did better / worse than Shinagawa in his much narrower loss... And it shows that despite Obama doing better in 9 counties, once more Chautauqua was a strange exception - there must be a reason for Shinagowa doing better here !
HOW COMPETITIVE IS IT ?
To determine how competitive NY-23 is, I guess you have to look at lessons learned from NY-29. Before you all groan I know it is a bit embarrassing bringing up Eric Massa... and he fought two close elections in 2006 and 2008 which were very favourable years for Democrats. But... lets face facts, if we want to have a shot at winning the house given the gerrymandering of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan we have got to max out in California and New York.
Whilst only 54% of NY-23 is the old 29th, it is the clear predecessor to the 23rd. NY-29 had a lone blue stronghold in part of Monroe County, similar to the role Tompkins County plays in NY-23.
2006 Election Results - 29th Congressional District
In 2006, Massa gave Kuhl a close race, although he won only one of the counties. Kuhl was able to win by racking up a large margin in Steuben County to largely cancel Massa's advantage in Monroe County. Kuhl then won all the other counties by solid margins.
2008 Election Results - 29th Congressional District
In 2008, Massa was able to beat Kuhl by racking up twice the margin in Monroe County as Kuhl had in Steuben County, as well as keeping all of the other counties (aside from blood red Allegany County) close, even winning Appalachian counties Chemung and Cattaraugus.
So upon review of these results, while they are promising in that the Dems won, it has a few flaws, in terms of being a useful strategy moving forward. Shinagawa won Tompkins by the same sort of amount that Massa won the part of Monroe in his district... yet he still lost. To win Massa actually won two Southern Tier counties... the Finger Lakes counties despite normally being less Republican managed to stay red. Competitive Ontario's numbers barely budged. Both Massa and Kuhl were from Steuben County, with Kuhl a former NY State Senator and Steuben County Official and Massa having no prior experience.
With Ithaca in the district it seems unlikely a blue dog will win this district, so it seems we might need to take advantage of presidential turnout. Reed has a strong advantage in Steuben County that is the red equivalent of Tompkins and I am sure he will try and pad his margins in the Appalachian counties going forward... pity there is no more pork barreling or earmarks...
THE CANDIDATE - NATE SHINAGAWA
FUNDRAISING
Nate Shinagawa is a fairly strong fundraiser, and while well outraised by Reed, still posted respectable numbers... But certainly below most other Dems in competitive NY races, although he did raise considerable more than Dan Lamb who challenged Hanna in NY-22 (Lamb only raised $300K). Murphy in the 11th got around $100K more.
TOTAL - $698K (Collected), $107K (Cash On Hand), $602K (Spent).
PG2012 - $70K (Raised), $130K (Cash On Hand), $107K (Spent).
3Q2012 - $312K (Raised), $170K (Cash On Hand), $251K (Spent).
2Q2012 - $194K (Raised), $109K (Cash On Hand). $192K (Spent).
1Q2012 - $113K (Raised), $95K (Cash On Hand), $18K (Spent).
So where did Nate (who is not a self funder) raise his cash this cycle ? Well it was mostly though around 85% individual contributions.
Of the other contributions... The late great Senator Dan Inouye's PAC swung $7k Nate's way... not inconsiderable. Mike Honda also sent cash, as did Larson. The unions contributed, as did Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club and a few "Asian" PACs. 5 of the 11 County Democratic Parties in the district sent some cash his way: Allegany, Steubens, Tioga, Tompkins, and Yates.
So in short there was union support, local support and Asian American support in funding the campaign.
Unfortunately winning the primary drained him of cash, prompting DKE to downgrade his race from Lean R to Likely R in August.
ELECTION
Shinagowa actually didn't perform too badly against Reed compared to Obama against Romney. The gap in Tompkins County was pretty small, and he actually did better against Reed than Obama did against Romney in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua (not sure why this is ?). But Obama won Seneca and Shinagawa didn't (wouldn't have changed the election but it is a clear difference).
Certainly it seems that Reed was largely limited to the rump Republican vote, when compared against the other Republicans in Obama Districts. Richard Hanna (won 61% of the vote) ran well ahead of Romney, as did Peter King (58%). The rest of the New York GOP reps essentially won by enough, as opposed to their being a huge % difference between the top of the ballot and the down ballot races.
So while the area may be historically Republican, Reed hasn't demonstrated any cross over appeal yet, and doesn't out perform the top of the ballot much at all.
ENDORSEMENTS
Nate won the the Working Families ballot line, and was endorsed by Cattaraugus County Democratic Committee, Chautauqua County Democratic Committee, Steuben County Democratic Committee and Tompkins County Democratic Committee and Chemung County Democratic Committee. He was also endorsed by the mayors of Ithaca, Elmira, Dunkirk, Waterloo, Hornell, Jamestown, and Freedonia.
As reflected in the contributions, Senator Inouye endorsed Nate for NY-23 along with the retiring Maurice Hinchey, Donna Edwards and Raúl Grijalva. I am guessing Nate was not a conservative! Snark.
PRIMARY RESULTS
In the primary, Shinagowa won a three-way race:
Shinagawa, Nate 5,697 (55%)
Burke, Leslie 3,841 (37%)
Dobson, Melissa 0,727 (7%)
After the primary, David Nir made a very nearly prophetic remark about him:
NY-23 (D) is called for Nate "The Great" Shinagawa. He earns the right to take on GOP freshman Tom Reed in November.
POSITIONS
I won't go into his various positions on the key issues, but it is fair to say that he is fairly progressive, for example supporting SSM:
https://twitter.com/...
HOW DID WE MISS IT ?
Still not really sure... But the primary did him in really. Basically the CW is that there is no such thing as a Safe Republican seat, but NY-23 was generally ranked by everybody as being the second safest Republican seat. Shinagawa was seen as... well no one mentioned him or the race very much. I couldn't find very many diaries on the subject at all, aside from the various DKE Live Digests etc.
It seems like a lack of fundraising early on and losing $$ winning the primary doomed Shinagawa to invisibility. Sienna Research polled all of the competitive races, which did not include NY-23 (or so we thought). Eric Massa managed to give incumbent Randy Kuhl a close race for the old 29th in 2006 before winning in 2008 (albeit both strong Dem years), and this was written off as a lost opportunity to get an entrenched incumbent (ala Owens).
WAY FORWARD
Obama won this seat in 2008, and I believe that is the more likely coalition to win the seat... try to win Seneca and Ontario along with maxing out Tompkins and try for a win in Chautauqua whilst keeping it close in Chemung and Finger Lakes. I just don't think a conservadem could make any inroads into the Southern Tier against Reed, like Massa did to Kuhl but that is just my subjective take on it... nothing to back this up aside from the general shift against the Dems in the greater Appalachian region. Well certainly a Thompkins County / Ithaca based liberal is far less likely to !
Yes it will be tough in a non-presidential year and Reed is likely to be ready for a contest, but I believe we have to make this one of our targeted races over the next two cycles, right up there in the top ten targets. Lets turn this historically Republican stronghold blue !
COMMENTS
All feedback is welcome, but please bear in mind that this is a Daily Kos Elections diary, which means that we look at the horse race rather than policy matters.