>
The New York race that will be a huge indicator for the midterms: Republican Marc Molinaro and Democrat Pat Ryan in a dead heat in race dominated by abortion stance and inflation
- New York is having a special election on Tuesday to decide who will serve the remainder of Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado’s House of Representatives term
- Both Marc Molinaro and Pat Ryan are county executives in the Empire State
- A July poll had Molinaro up by 10 points but one from this month saw the Republican candidate’s lead shrink to just three percent
- Ryan has largely run his campaign off of outrage at the Supreme Court overturning abortion rights granted in Roe v. Wade
- Molinaro has focused his energy on voter dissatisfaction with the economy
<!–
<!–
<!–<!–
<!–
<!–
<!–
A special election in New York to fill the remainder of former House Rep. Antonio Delgado’s term on Tuesday is being eyed by both Republicans and Democrats as a potential bellwether for the November midterms.
Democrat Pat Ryan, the Ulster County executive, has run a campaign channeling voter outrage over the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
Meanwhile his GOP rival, Dutchess County executive Marc Molinaro, has largely centered his campaign on Americans’ dissatisfaction with Democrats’ handling of the economy.
A recent poll shows the two candidates in a near-tie after weeks of Molinaro enjoying a double-digit lead.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee survey shows Ryan trailing Molinaro’s 46 percent support by just three points.
A July poll from the pro-Molinaro group Freedom Council has the same gap at roughly 10 percent.
It comes as Democrats nationwide are seeing a new hope in an election year that was widely expected to bring a ‘red tsunami’ to Congress.
Voters in deep-red Kansas bucked expectations when they turned out in droves last month to reject a proposal that would have stripped abortion protections out of their state constitution.
Now, election watchers on both sides of the aisle will get their first glimpse into how that translates into picking a Congressional representative.
The Democratic executive of Ulster County, Pat Ryan, is largely focusing his campaign on the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade an the subsequent rollback of abortion rights seen across the country
Dutchess County executive Marc Molinaro has insisted in multiple public comments that Americans are mainly concerned with the economy
Delgado, a Democrat, vacated the seat in the Empire State’s 19th Congressional District to serve as lieutenant governor to new New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Voters there chose Delgado over his Republican challenger by a margin of more than 10 percent in 2020. But President Joe Biden carried the district by just two points that same year.
It was won by Donald Trump in 2016, and Barack Obama in 2012.
But a growing number of public opinion polls show that the Supreme Court overturning Roe may be a significant enough factor to shake up this year’s races.
An Ipsos/USA Today poll released earlier this month suggests 7 in 10 US voters want to vote on a similar ballot measure to the one in Kansas.
And 54 percent said they would vote to protect the right to an abortion.
Ryan told Reuters that ‘the ground is literally shifting’ because of the Roe decision.
‘This has fundamentally re-energized – certainly in this district and this community – not just Democrats, but a wide swath of folks,’ the Democrat said.
Molinaro insisted to the outlet that everyday Americans were primarily concerned about the state of their finances.
Their election will be a bellwether to see what issues drive voters to the ballot box
‘These are families, and these are communities, that are working too hard and getting too little in return…that’s what’s on their minds,’ he said.
The Republican’s claim is also backed up by public surveys, with more than two-thirds of respondents to an early August ABC News/Ipsos poll believing the US economy is getting worse.
Just 37 percent of people who were surveyed said they approve of Biden’s handling of the economy.
The outlook brightened somewhat in a new NBC News poll released on Sunday, though his approval rating on the economy is still under water at 40 percent.
The race for New York’s 19th Congressional District is politically a toss-up, according to Inside Elections’ tracker.
While it could be an early sign for what’s to come, the election results won’t be a definitive victory for either side looking toward next year.
The state’s newly-redrawn Congressional map will force Ryan to run in the nearby 18th district in November.
While Molinaro’s home will also technically be outside the bounds of the new 19th district, he’s setting up to run for the same seat again later this year.