It’s a big effort to make to run for a seat that will likely be redrawn at best or maybe eliminated at worst. But Mark Critz (D) did it in PA and now he has name recognition and experience if he chooses to run in one of the adjacent redrawn districts. So for Critz, it might have been worth it.
I’ll bet Cuomo will delay the special election until November first to save money and also so the anti-Weiner sentiment can abate.
The NY-09 gave President Bush 45% (IIRC) in 2004, a huge uptick from the 30% or so he got there in 2000. I believe that it was the biggest increase for President Bush in the nation—Bush did much better among Jewish (particularly Orthodox Jewish) voters the second time around, due not only to September 11 but to the fact that Orthodox Jewish Democrat Joe Lieberman was not running for VP. McCain did a bit worse than 45%, but not much worse. In the Brooklyn portion of the district (which is heavily Orthodox Jewish), I believe that both Bush and McCain got 57%.
So the district could be competitive for the right Republican. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a Jewish Republican would give us a better chance, and an Orthodox Jewish Republican would be ideal. While it is true that neither Bush nor McCain is Jewish, the Democrats will run a Jewish candidate, not run a haughty patrician from Massachusetts not a black crypto-Muslim from God knows where, so a generic GOP candidate would start off with less than the 45% that Bush got. We need a Jewish Republican to have a chance. Mr. Ulrich may be a terrific candidate (I don’t know), but he won’t get the type of Orthodox Jewish support and turnout needed to pull off the upset.
And as for the theory that the district will be “eliminated” in redistricting, I doubt that Nadler will want even more Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in his CD, and the black-majority districts to its north would be a bad fit as well. It would make more sense to place the Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods that are currently split among Weiner’s and Nadler’s CDs in the same district, which would make it (i) even more competitive for the GOP and (ii) even more unlikely to elect a non-Jewish candidate. So redistricting is yet another reason why we should run an Orthodox Jewish candidate.