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Chris Gibson’s congressional campaign has issued a memo describing an internal poll showing the retired Army colonel from Kinderhook is trailing Rep. Scott Murphy, D-Glens Falls, by four points. In a head-to-head match up, the poll found Murphy leading Gibson 42-38. The pollsters write in a memo: “Among the voters most interested in the election, Gibson leads, 41%-40%.” The poll was conducted early last week by Public Opinion Strategies and surveyed 400 “likely” voters, determined by their self-rating. Dan Odescalchi, a Gibson spokesman, said the sample was 41 percent Republican, 27 percent Democratic and 32 percent un-enrolled or other parties....

Recently, veterans supporting Chris Gibson’s candidacy announced the formation of the Veterans for Gibson Coalition. Gibson recently retired from the military after serving for 24 years. He rose to the rank of Colonel and was deployed seven times, which included four tours to Iraq. “The men and women that have served, or still serve, our nation hold a special place in my heart. Their support for my candidacy has been overwhelming and I want them to know that I will always be there for them. It is thanks to them that we live in a country that is free, prosperous...

COLUMBIA COUNTY, NY - Chris Gibson, a fiscally conservative combat veteran who entered the race to represent New York’s 20th Congressional District in March, demonstrated his fundraising prowess with a posting of nearly $500,000 for the quarter. Roughly 90 percent of total contributions came from individuals, his campaign has announced. Gibson believes his ability to immediately begin out-raising his opponent, Scott Murphy, after a late entrance into the race shows the viability and strength of his message. “We are very honored by the overwhelming amount of support we have received,” Gibson said.. “We have traveled all over the district and...

Democrat Scott Murphy’s lead is now up to 178 votes over Republican Jim Tedisco, after a small number of additional absentee and overseas military ballots were counted in Dutchess and Rensselaer Counties. More notably, as the count begins to wind down, it seems like the GOP is prepared for a protracted court battle, at least by the sound of this internal memo sent this afternoon by a National Republican Congressional Committee staffer: From: ********** [mailto:********@nrcc.org] Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:04 PM To: Subject: NY-20 Update Hi there, I wanted to give you an update on NY-20. As of last...

COLUMBIA COUNTY — 20th Congressional District candidate Republican Jim Tedisco submitted a petition to the Dutchess County Supreme Court Thursday asking the judge to declare him the winner of the extremely close special election race, despite the numbers currently being in favor of his opponent, Democrat Scott Murphy. SNIP Tedisco is also asking the court to authorize recanvasing of all machine ballots to acquire the “proper” tallies. He would like them to reassess the validity of absentee votes already counted, and keep ballots challenged by Tedisco unopened. County Board of Elections Democratic Commissioner Virginia Martin said this new development could...

Democrats are accusing Republicans of walking away from the counting table in Dutchess County with the absentee ballots from three towns still unopened, thereby stalling a recount of the election between Scott Murphy and Jim Tedisco for Kirsten Gillibrand's open House seat. One of the Republicans charged with adjudicating ballot objections took the day off to attend a baseball game. Results released this morning by the State Board of Elections show that with more results in from Columbia and Washington counties, Murphy's lead has more than doubled, to 178. In Dutchess, things have come to a halt. In order for...

The Saratoga County Board of Elections finished counting ballots Wednesday, but absentee voters in the county a stronghold for Jim Tedisco did not give the Republican enough of a boost to lift him above Democrat Scott Murphy in the entire 10-county district. Tedisco finished in Saratoga County with a 163-vote advantage among absentee ballots, bringing the total county tally to 30,708 for Tedisco, 25,937 for Murphy. Elections staff in Washington County also finished counting on Wednesday, padding Murphy's election-night win with 267 more votes for a total of 7,283 for Murphy, 5,578 for Tedisco. At the end of the day,...

ALBANY—Judge James Brands just ruled that most of the over 1,200 contested absentee ballots in the race to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in Congress were objected to improperly based on discrepancies in their applications. This means many more ballots will be counted. Henry Berger, an attorney for Democratic candidate Scott Murphy, argued this morning that these ballots should all be counted because boards of election already issued them. Any problems with those ballots - from an invalid reason for the request to a missing date - cannot be challenged because the determination was already made by elections officials to send them...