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Updated 12:30 PM | Rep. Bill Owens, D-N.Y., announced Tuesday that he will retire from Congress after just two full terms. “After careful thought and consideration, I have decided not to seek re-election for the 21st Congressional District this November,” he wrote in a news release. “It has truly been a privilege to serve, and I plan on continuing to work for a brighter future for the region.” Owens faced a somewhat competitive race against former Bush White House staffer Elise Stefanik. Republicans view the now-open seat in upstate New York as a potential pickup opportunity in 2014. In 2012,...

The Board of the Office of Congressional Ethics  just released findings (with extensive evidentiary supporting documents) that there is “substantial reason to believe” Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY21) violated federal law and House Rules in connection with a trip to Taiwan (emphasis added): NATURE OF THE ALLEGED VIOLATIONS: Representative Bill Owens may have accepted payment of travel expenses for an officially connected trip to Taiwan from an impermissible source, resulting in an impermissible gift, in violation of federal law and House Rules. Representative Owens may have accepted payment of travel expenses for an officially connected trip to Taiwan, when that trip was in some part planned,...

Earlier this morning Doug Hoffman announced he was dropping out of the race and is supporting my candidacy for Congress to take back the 23rd. I am deeply appreciative of Doug’s support. Now, more than ever, Republicans, Conservatives and independents are united in our efforts to defeat Bill Owens in November. Thank you for all your support. Please read a copy of the article that appeared in this morning’s Adirondack Daily Enterprise. Hoffman out of Congress race SARANAC LAKE — Doug Hoffman has dropped out of the race to represent New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Hoffman’s name will still appear...

Conservative Congressional candidate Douglas L. Hoffman said he will continue campaigning, despite losing the Sept. 14 Republican primary to Matthew A Doheny.

As the weeks grind by, I'm hearing more back-room chatter from Republicans that this election may be slipping through their fingers, despite the apparent vulnerability of Democratic Rep. Bill Owens. Mr. Owens won a special election victory less than a year ago, inching across the finish line by the narrowest of margins. Since then, Democratic policies and President Barack Obama have lost some luster with voters. So why aren't Republicans capitalizing? Put bluntly, they despise and distrust each other. When I talk to GOP stalwarts — the kind of folks who are generally supporting Mr. Doheny — they express open...

Joining Pat, aka Honest Conservative, on Freedom Radio tonight are Doug Hoffman who is leading the 2010 race in New York-23 for the people's seat. Former Air Force and CIA veteran Gary Berntsen of New York will also be with us after announcing his candidacy today for the U.S. Senate. In addition, Iraq War veteran and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Allen West returns to Freedom Radio to discuss his run for U.S. Congress in Florida's 22nd Congressional District. Here is the show link. The call-in-number is 646-478-5613.

Dede Scozzafava's friends have another bad day ... Doug Hoffman 2010 going strong in NY23! Yep, even the north country New York GOP has good news for us. Happy St. Patrick's Day. "Mr. Barclay was the most outspoken of the potential candidates during his brief flirtation with the seat, with Mr. Owens and Mr. Hoffman being his two main targets for criticism." - Watertown Daily News

William A. Barclay said Sunday he will not seek the Republican nomination in the 23rd Congressional District and instead will campaign for re-election to the state Assembly. "As the days went by, increasingly I came to realize that something was gnawing at me," the Pulaski politician said in an e-mail to supporters. "You can sum it up with one simple word: duty."

New conservative candidates are emerging in New York House races ... updates are included in this thread. Perhaps the most exciting new conservative on the scene is Retired Army colonel Chris Gibson (R) in NY-20. (Recall that freshman Rep. Murphy was elected last spring in a tight special election over GOPer Jim Tedisco.) An Albany Times Union blog reports: "Retired Army colonel Chris Gibson of Kinderhook won an endorsement from the Clifton Park Republican Committee Thursday night. The members talked to Gibson as well as the other men looking to challenge Democrat U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy in the 20th Congressional...

It's Official - Hoffman to Run Plans to Unite GOP, Conservative & Independence Parties to Defeat Owens Doug Hoffman, the conservative Republican small businessman, who, last November, narrowly lost a Special Election in upstate New York's 23rd Congressional District, tonight emailed a letter to over 20,000 of his supporters declaring that he will be formally entering the race and that "this time we will defeat Bill Owens". Hoffman, a life-long Republican, ran in last year's hard fought race on the Conservative Party line. This year he plans to unite the Republican, Conservative and Independence Parties in an effort to defeat...

Doug Hoffman stopped by Red State's Bloggers Lounge to talk with the bloggers. I was fortunate enough to work with another brilliant conservative blogger - GenMom - and snagged an interview with Doug.The video was shot in a busy hallway, please turn up your speaker volume to better hear this interview with Doug.[VIDEO AT SITE] Doug is currently running for Congress - Hoffman for Congress 2010Read more at floppingaces.net...

Interesting take on the two-step campaign that will be waged for the NY-23 race this year.

Three months after a rift between GOP party leaders and grass-roots conservatives led to the special election loss of a historically Republican-held seat in upstate New York, another campaign melodrama is taking shape in the same district. Doug Hoffman, last November’s Conservative Party nominee in New York’s 23rd District who is vying again for the seat, is refusing to rule out running as a third-party candidate this year if he fails to win the Republican primary. And his leading backer, Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long, told POLITICO that he refuses to endorse any candidate other than Hoffman — raising the...

There are new suspicions about the veracity of the election results in NY's 23rd Congressional District. After the election, a re-canvassing of the 11-county district had Owens’ lead narrowing to 3,026 votes over Hoffman, 66,698 to 63,672, with about 10,000 absentee ballots to be counted according to the latest unofficial results from the state Board of Elections. In Hoffman's stronghold, Oswego County, where the conservative was reported to lead by only 500 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted election night, inspectors found Hoffman actually won by 1,748 votes -- 12,748 to 11,000. There is new bad news for...

Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman on Wednesday accused ACORN and union interests of stealing the upstate New York special election that he conceded on Nov. 3. Hoffman on Monday "unconceded" after recanvassing of votes across the district showed Democratic Rep. Bill Owens' margin of victory narrowing. Hoffman originally conceded after trailing Owens by 5,335 votes, but further counts showed him trailing by 3,176 votes. A recent count of absentee ballots in three counties showed Hoffman still trailing by 2,951. Until this point Hoffman has said a victory would be a "long shot." Now, Hoffman is accusing liberal groups of unjustly...

November 16, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Dede Scozzafava Is No GOP ModerateShe is a donkey in an elephant costume. By Deroy Murdock Re-canvassed votes in upstate New York’s 23rd Congressional District foreshadow the second coming of third-party candidate Doug Hoffman. As Mark Weiner of the Syracuse Post-Standard reported Thursday morning, Conservative nominee Hoffman’s 5,335-vote deficit behind Democrat Bill Owens has shrunk to just 3,026 after Election Night tabulation errors were corrected. Some 10,200 absentee ballots remain uncounted. State Board of Elections spokesman John Conklin told Weiner, “All ballots will be counted, and if the result changes, Owens will have to...

Our Campaign Is Not Over Yet! So many people have written hoping we continue the fight, count every ballot and make sure no one steals this election. Acorn and the unions did their best to try and say that the conservative movement was a sham. Rest assured they will not succeed. On Election Night the information we received was far different from what we received this week. They will not silence our voice that easily! There is also the fact that NY is using the Sequoia Voting Systems machines. Princeton University (http://citp.princeton.edu/voting/advantage/) cited them as having been susceptible to voter...

On election night, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman conceded defeat to Democratic candidate Bill Owens after dramatically under-performing in key counties and deciding that he couldn’t overcome the gap. Today, the campaign is “looking very closely” at a recanvass of the district that has revealed, as recanvasses often do, screw-ups in the initial count. What was a 5,335-vote margin for Owens on election night is now a 3,026-vote margin, due largely to initial under-reporting of Hoffman votes in Oswego County and Jefferson County. According to Mark Weiner’s report, the Hoffman campaign is leaving open the option of legal challenges if...

Word in from NY 23 that Conservative Doug Hoffman now trails by just 3000 votes as the official  tabulation process continues. "The new vote totals mean the race will be decided by absentee ballots, of which about 10,200 were distributed."  Among the absentee ballots that remain uncounted are "military and overseas ballots received by this coming Monday (and postmarked by Nov. 2)..." But Bill Owens "was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives.  His support sealed his party's narrow victory on the health care legislation." By what right does...

Washington -- Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County. As it turns out, neither was true.