A few last tidbits on the NY-26 race as we wait for the polls to close. And don't forget to enter our predictions contest!
•Endorsements: Andrew Cuomo, who earlier had withheld his endorsement, cut a last-minute ad for Democrat Kathy Hochul. Bill Clinton also recorded a robocall for Hochul, while NJ Gov. Chris Christie did the same for Republican Jane Corwin.
•Money: Open Secrets has a helpful graph showing how much third-party spending there's been in the race, and who's been the target of it. One last little insertion of funds was made by none other than the National Organization for Marriage.
•Ads: The Chamber of Commerce got into a heap of trouble by running an ad which tried to claim the Tonawanda News supported Republican Jane Corwin's views, when in reality the newspaper simply quoted a speech she gave. Corwin also took some lumps for refusing to denounce the ad. Meanwhile, the NRCC finished out with yet another ad trying to invoke the specter of Nancy Pelosi.
•Blame game: Monroe County GOP Chair Bill Relich made some veiled jabs at Nick Langworthy, the Erie County Republican Chair, over his handling of the election, noting that Langworthy never met with him since the race started. Erie represents a much larger section of the district than Monroe, and Relich seems happy to let Langworthy take his geographically-proportionate share of the blame should Corwin lose. Meanwhile, NRCC Chair Pete Sessions sounded dour about Corwin's prospects on a GOP conference call earlier today, and wants to direct blame away from Medicare and on to Jack Davis's shoulders.
Meanwhile, this was a real wtf-er from Corwin, just today:
Jane L. Corwin this afternoon obtained a court order from State Supreme Court Justice Russell P. Buscaglia barring a certification of a winner in the special 26th Congressional District race pending a show-cause hearing before him later this week. ...Pending court proceedings before Buscaglia on Thursday at the earliest, the judge also impounded all voting equipment and enjoined the canvass of paper ballots "except as directed by this court" and "temporarily enjoined and restrained from certifying" the winner pending that court hearing.
Corwin's campaign claims this is "very typical" in races where the polling is close, but I can't recall anything like this in the past. Is she trying to set up some kind of "FRAUD!!!!!111" claim in advance? UPDATE: Dave Weigel says that Jim Tedisco filed for a similar order in the NY-20 special back in 2009.
•On the ground: James Hohmann at Politico shares some details about the enthusiastic levels of volunteering at Hochul's offices. Rachel Weiner at the Washington Post makes the case that Hochul is simply the better, more experienced candidate who's more in tune with the district. And finally, Liz Benjamin at Capitol Tonight has rounded up some info about the number of absentee ballots requested and returned, on a county-by-county basis. It looks like positive news: Erie County, which made up 34% of the vote in 2008, has requested 38% of the absentee ballots — important, because Erie is the bluest of the counties that make up the 26th CD.
•Lulz: Jack Davis claimed to have commissioned a poll which showed Hochul leading with 44% of the vote, Davis with 27, and Corwin at 17! I don't even understand why he'd put out such a thing, but what makes it even more comical, he refused to release the crosstabs or even say who conducted the poll. Still more absurd, Davis alleged the survey had a sample size of 4,602!
And finally, Green Party candidate and Scott Walker prankster Ian Murphy engaged in some more hijinks, pretending to be an ordinary volunteer and offering to make phone calls for Jane Corwin. I wonder if he violated any electioneering laws, but there's no question the guy is funny. Sample call:
“But there’s a very important election coming up this Tuesday and if you don’t vote for Jane Corwin horrible things will happen to you and the people you love… she was a successful business fetus… hello?”