Tom Reynolds (R) trailing John Davis (D) in NY26 58% - 41%

[Pilotguy]

[joemurphy]

1. Yowza!

[Liberalynn]

2. Yahoo!

Any word on Massa v Kuhl yet?

I so want Kuhl too loose.

[TankLV]

3. YES!

Way to go Buffalo!

[Liberalynn]

4. Sadly

the lead did not hold up and the seat went back to Reynolds. sob!

Also it looks like Kuhl will beat Massa. YUCK. I wanted Kuhl outta here.

[PATRICK]

5. Massa

When the robocalling started it was small and traced to one local troll. I think they sensed, because of all the calling necessary to take this tough district, that the voters were vulnerable to being harassed away from their vote. So the nationwide robocalling hit us the very last day especially hard with no time to educate people. The elements that hurt were a high GOP turnout, though maybe only 50% of their total registered compared to a much heavier and more enthusiastic Dem turnout, the fading of the Foley scandal bounce and the dirty campaigning. Massa was unabashedly forthright in his policy stands but I don't think crafting for single issue voters is the way to go to further assault the registration advantage of the GOP.

We have made great inroads toward chipping away at the GOP base altogether as they become increasingly sickened(or awakened) for drinking the Kuhl-Aid. They have put their literal chickens into a few baskets and a victory here might signal the death throes of the entire party in NY.

As for the holding out for the absentee ballots, the math just isn't there barring any wondrous overwhelming Massa vote there. He IS right to wait though since the absentee ballots are from seniors, students absent from the local TV ads and worried about their loans. They will greatly appreciate having their votes counted. I really expect him to at least close the gap and make Kuhl very queasy about the future.

[GenDem]

6. We got hit hard with the robo-calls in 26

We were working the phones in Genesee County for two weeks before the election just trying to convince seniors that Davis wasn't going to take away their social security.

When it was time to make GOTV phone calls for all of our candidates starting last Friday, the robo-calls from Reynolds were coming in to everyones homes 10 and more times a day. As soon as we started our very simple script to remind democrats to vote on Tuesday, many would hang up as soon as we said "Tuesday is election day"

This hurt our local coroners race, assembly races, and Hillary, Spitzer, and Cuomo races, too.

We also could not convince people that the calls weren't coming from Davis. They would respond that Davis was negative. When in actuality Davis ran a pretty positive campaign and stuck with the issues. The only time he hit hard was with an ad on the Foley scandal, which was a campaign issue.

I hope that there will be lawsuits. Reynolds is a pig, and played dirty!

[PATRICK]

7. The same here

I was getting nervous about the enthusiastic Labor and Moveon.org calling hitting too many repeats before the election. The social security ads were startling when SYMPATHETIC voters who should know better is even modestly informed asked if Massa was going to "raise taxes" "hurt social security payments and benefit". Maybe our region, relying on heavy phone calling, was a particular success of robocalling efforts that maybe were used because OTHER cheating was not available. The last minute effect was devastating and because at the last minute, unmeasureable. The potential punishments for such things are minuscule in comparison. The time to react against things is something the GOP calculates very well, accepting blowback among their own in order to win. When they miscalculated as with Arcuri such things are heavily punished by the voters.

The DNC has to study the scope and the effects of that effort. Such things force us to the LAST recourse of campaign strategy which is drastically increasing canvassing efforts and the number of ground volunteers while honing, reducing and INFORMING people of how the campaign is doing phone work. That is pretty grim but we should have had more volunteers, busy and timid as most people are. Recruiting methods need to be more enabling, giving people the route of just a couple of hours and doing something they can immediately handle. Most of all though it shouldn't be this way to overcome unfairness. It IS our strength though, sometimes our only one. Ad control or strategy is more a thorn than a service to the voter. The internet helped. MOST people have an online connection whether they use it or not. The crafting of the front page is extremely important. People want to be informed, to see immediate, clear responses to attacks and specific issue clarifications. For some, single issues are VERY important. Controlling and fielding questions online I am sure is prone to GOP fiddling but it would be more invaluable than media call-ins. I am not sure our website did that well enough as it presented a lot to do with campaigning as well.

[GenDem]

8. Rural western NY & the southern tier

seem just as red as Utah, thanks in part to gerrymandering. Reynolds embodied the culture of corruption and they still voted him back in. We worked tremendously hard in Genesee County; lit drops, phone banking, & LTTE's. Reynolds kept hitting with all the negatives right till the bitter end.

I think your right about getting off the phones and going to the voters doors to counter the barrage of robo-calls and deceitful ads. We didn't have enough people for that, either. We did have a fantastic core of motivated volunteers and will build on that next time.

You had a great candidate in Massa.....he definitely should have been the victor. I hope he tries again. Reynolds and Kuhl used the same play book. It's too bad.