Round-Up From Tuesday Special Elections in New York

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• Opinion: Special Elections Show the Waning Power of the Party (By Justin Krebs, WNYC/It's a Free Blog) The Democratic Party in New York City should feel like it's being challenged on all sides -- because it is. This isn't just about sinking poll numbers on a national level, though that doesn't help.  It's about transforming loyalties in local and state politics.
• Working Families Party and Green Party Both Set New Record for New York Legislative Nominees (Ballot Access News) Gonzalez’ showing is the best ever for a New York WFP nominee for the legislature.
• NY-9: Winners and Losers (By Alex Isenstadt, NBC-NY from Politico) LOSERS: Downstate Democrats – With New York losing two seats in reapportionment, Weiner’s vacant seat was a perfect target for elimination – a way for Democrats tasked with redrawing the state’s congressional map to protect long-serving incumbents. But with the seat now in GOP hands, the ripple effect is that a downstate Democratic incumbent could now be axed.
• GIANARIS BILLS STRENGTHEN VOTING PROCESS (John Toscano, Queens Gazette/I On Politics) •S 1972 allows for Election Day Voter Registration so new voters can register to vote up to Election Day itself.
• Mayor To Testify In Haggerty Trial? (John Toscano, Queens Gazette/I On Politics)
• Democrats vow to pursue Medicare message after N.Y. and Nevada losses (By Felicia Sonmez and Paul Kane, Washington Post/2chambers) The main problem, Burton said, is that too many Democrats are not taking the Republican field seriously given some of the positions candidates have staked out - on Social Security and Medicare, for example - that could turn off crucial independent voters.
• The Rise of Democratic Discontent - After this week's election defeats, unhappiness with the president is sure to build. (By KARL ROVE, Wall Street Journal) Mr. Obama's main political challenge between now and November 2012 is winning back independent voters. After voting for him by a 52-to-44 margin in 2008, only 41% approve of his job performance and only 34% approve of his handling of the economy in the latest Resurgent Republic Poll. On big issues, independents look a lot more like Republicans than Democrats.

NY-9 Special Election Goes to Bob Turner

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SPECIAL ELECTION RESULTS: Ninth Congressional District (City Hall News)

• Ninth Congressional District: Bob Turner 54%, David Weprin 46%
• 23rd Assembly District: Phil Goldfeder 54%, Jane Deacy 46%
• 27th Assembly District: Michael Simanowitz 76%, Marco DeSena 24%
• 54th Assembly District: Rafael Espinal 44%, Jesus Gonzalez 32%, Deidra Towns 23%
• 73rd Assembly District: Dan Quart 66%, Paul Niehaus 34%
• 116th Assembly District: Anthony Brindisi 57%, Gregory Johnson 43%
• 144th Assembly District: Sean Ryan 71%, Sean Kipp 21%
• 28th City Council District: Ruben Wills 67%, Allan Jennings 17%, Michael Duvalle 11%, Clifton Stanley Diaz 6%

• After Weprin Loss, Queens Democratic Party Faces Hard Questions (By Adam Lisberg, City Hall News) Yet within Democratic circles, Republican Bob Turner’s surprise 8-point victory over Assemblyman David Weprin was a harsh judgment on the Queens Democratic Party, which picked Weprin, assumed he would win easily in a district with a 3-1 Democratic tilt, and failed to react when Turner’s campaign caught fire. “They picked a candidate, rested on their laurels and wrote off Brooklyn,” said a frustrated Democratic elected official, one of many who gave up on the Queens Democratic Party’s efforts long before Election Day.
• CANDIDATE COLLEGE: A NEW YORK CIVIC ENGAGEMENT EVENT (Co-Sponsored by Common Cause New York, Women’s City Club of New York, and New Roosevelt, Media Sponsors: City Hall & The Capitol)
• Koch’s reapportionment plan is dead (LETTER Queens Courier) Although a majority of state legislators actively endorsed former Mayor Koch’s call for an independent legislative redistricting process, this is not what we got. Where are the voices that promised an independent redistricting commission? Of course, nowhere to be found now that the two parties begin drawing district lines that will insure the re-election of these politicians over the next 10 years? When we elect the same people, time and time again, why should we expect different results?
• Democratic Party Pick Wins Brooklyn Race (By LIZ ROBBINS, NY Times) The Democratic machine whirred and then roared in northern Brooklyn on Tuesday, churning out a significant victory for Rafael L. Espinal in a fiercely contested three-way race for the 54th State Assembly District seat.
• Republican Wins N.Y. Democrat Weiner's House Seat (by Joel Rose, NPR) "There may be some people that are voting against Weprin because they think they're voting against Obama," said Greg Stein of Forest Hills. "I don't buy it. I don't see that connection well at all." Stein thinks voters in the district are angry about the economy, not the president's foreign policy.
• Is the Republican Win in New York a Sign? (By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, NY Times/The Caucus) But drawing broad conclusions from elections in districts of about 600,000 people — especially when only a small fraction of those turn out to vote — can be tricky.

Today's NY-9 Special Election a Partisan Conundrum

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• Special Election! So What’s So Special? (By CLYDE HABERMAN, NY Times/City Room) The ballot choices on Tuesday come courtesy of the leaders of the major parties, who could not bear the idea of letting people in that Brooklyn-Queens district choose their candidates in open primaries.
• Anti-Gay Marriage Forces Converge On NY-9 (By Adam Lisberg, City Hall News) The TV ads and the big endorsements are trying to make today’s special election in the Ninth Congressional District a referendum on President Barack Obama, Republican budget cuts and Israel – but a low-profile campaign among Orthodox Jews aims to make it about same-sex marriage.
• Dems fear loss in N.Y. House race (By: Alex Isenstadt, Politico) In a room adorned with pictures of Queens County Democratic power players, including Rep. Joe Crowley, the party chairman, and the late Rep. Thomas Manton, a row of desks is stacked with get-out-the-vote materials, organized in manila envelopes by neighborhood — part of what Weprin officials describe as a sophisticated Election Day operation. The campaign says it has 1,000 workers and by Tuesday will have contacted more than 200,000 voters — some more than once. With the assistance of the organized labor-backed Working Families Party, Democrats plan to target around 60,000 labor households. 
• Pols: Vito’s a geezer freezes (By Aaron Short, The Brooklyn Paper) Good government groups call the practice “objectionable.” “Seniors should not be walled off from the world for political reasons or any other,” said Common Cause’s Susan Lerner. “Seniors want company, they want to feel a part of current events.”

New York Politics: Haggerty, Turner, Weprin, Gonzalez and Towns

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• Trial of ex-aide Haggerty, accused of pocketing $1 million from mayor, is still Bloomberg's problem (BY Melissa Grace and Erin Einhorn, DAILY NEWS) "The mayor violated [campaign finance rules], and Haggerty is going down for it," said one prominent campaign finance lawyer. "[Bloomberg] signed a form that said that he would only spend money on his campaign through his campaign committee....If [the money] wasn't for his campaign, then Haggerty couldn't have defrauded him."
• Vito is a bloc 'blocker' (By AARON SHORT, NY Post) Jesus Gonzalez and Deidra Towns say the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center, a Lopez-founded charity that manages several senior facilities in the district, has made it nearly impossible for them to meet constituents in those buildings.
• Guide for the Last Minute Voter: 2011 Primary and Special Election (by Gotham Gazette) The political parties, though see this contest as a chance to show their strength -- or, more accurately, the other side's weakness – and have dumped in money and resources. Over the weeks, both candidate seem to have readily adopted the role as their party's standard-bearer. At a recent debate in Howard Beach -- complete with Tea Party hecklers and a pack of noisy Weprin backers in the rear of the church meeting room -- the two epitomized a left/right split.
• Independence Party endorsements raise questions (By BRYON ACKERMAN, Utica Observer-Dispatch) Dozens of candidates will be on the Independence Party line in elections this year in Oneida County, but there have been questions about the nomination process used in two of the highest profile local races: the Assembly and the Utica mayoral races… Ernie Sanita is running for mayor on an independent line and said he wasn’t interested in screening with any political parties.
• Turner up by six, just two days before New York special election (By Alexis Levinson, The Daily Caller) Turner has a strong lead with independent voters, 58 percent of whom say they will vote for him. Just 26 percent plan to vote for Weprin. Turner also has the majority of the Jewish vote, a demographic that makes up 36 percent of the district according to PPP’s results. Fifty-six percent of Jews say they will vote for Turner, while 39 percent say they have chosen Weprin.

235 Years Later, One Man (and Now Woman), One Vote Achieves Judicial Legitimacy in New York!

Congratulations to the minor party coalition Conservative Party, Working Families Party and the Taxpayers Party that brought the lawsuit that reviewed the double-count "glitch" --  it took a lawsuit to correct a computer glitch? Ahh, the world we live in!

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• State Heeds Minor Parties on Voting-Machine Complaint (By SAM ROBERTS, NY Times/City Room) Under a consent decree signed approved Thursday by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court in Manhattan, the board agreed to reprogram voting machines before the 2012 general election to prevent people from voting more than once for the same candidate.
• Editorials - The Daily News endorses Jesus Gonzalez to represent Brooklyn's 54th District in the Assembly
• Forget Rome: Jesus Gonzalez Takes on Brooklyn (Village Voice) Gonzalez, meanwhile, has the Working Families Party line, which is working to reestablish its political potency ahead of the 2013 citywide cycle after a rough few years with nearly losing its ballot line amidst an investigation of its apparent collaboration with Data and Field Services, a nominally independent private company that seemed to only work for WFP picks and at remarkable discounts.
• Democrats now likely to lose Anthony Weiner's seat (By Alex Pareene, Salon/New York City) Siena college now has Turner at 50%, with Weprin at 44%. That's within the margin of error, but it's obviously a bad sign for Democrats.
• NY-9: A referendum on Obama? (By Jennifer Rubin,Washington Post/Right Turn) Whaa?
• Turner blows past Weprin, leads by 6 points in latest NY-9 Siena poll (by Colby Hamilton, WNYC/The Empire)

NY CD 9th Special: Turner and Weprin Battle

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'Spy' furor for Weprin - New flap in Weiner race (By ERIK KRISS in Albany and LEN MANIACE and IKMULISA LIVINGSTON in New York, NY Post) The pollsters said independent voters are breaking toward Turner as the Sept. 13 special election approaches.

Staten Island: Isn't "Partisan Hack Trickery" a Triple Redundancy??

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• Rep. Michael Grimm slams flier campaign as 'partisan hack trickery' (By Judy L. Randall, SI Advance) Grimm’s fiery reaction came two hours after a loose coalition of about 20 activists rallied across the street from his office to take him to task on jobs, Medicare and Social Security. About half were Staten Islanders, including members of the Democratic Party, Move On.org, Restore the American Promise and the Working Families Party, which asked for press coverage of the event saying unemployed Islanders would be present.
• Turner, Weprin, Gonzalez, Goldfeder in the endorsement roundup! (WNYC/The Empire) The Jewish Voice has endorsed Republican for Congress in the 9th District

Do NYC Repubs Have a Chance in September Special Election?

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Two Chances for the GOP - Turner, Niehaus Endorsed by the Sun (Editorial of The New York) The special elections on September 13 include two in which there is a possibility of bringing in Republicans to fill seats taken for granted by Democrats. One of them, to fill the seat vacated by Congressman Anthony Weiner, features a Republican, in Robert Turner, who has come within six points of a Weiner-like Democrat, David Weprin, according to the latest poll. In the other, a Republican, Paul Niehaus, is running on the Upper East Side of Manhattan against a union-backed Democrat, Daniel Quart, to fill the seat in the state assembly vacated by Jonathan Bing, when he resigned to join Governor Cuomo’s administration.

NY 9: Partisan Picks for Anthony Weiner's Seat - Very Slim

NEW YORK

• Blow against O in Weiner race - Koch: Vote for GOPer a vote for Israel (By CARL CAMPANILE, NY POST) In "a shot across President Obama's bow," Democratic former Mayor Ed Koch yesterday urged voters in Queens and Brooklyn to make "history" by voting for the Republican candidate to replace randy ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner in the Sept. 13 special election -- as a protest against the White House's policy on Israel.
• Bob Turner Launches Congressional Campaign (By: Grace Rauh, YNN Central NY) On Monday, Weprin picked up support from the Working Families Party. He also has the backing of the Independence Party. The Conservative Party has endorsed Turner.
• Cuomo has plenty of work left: From education to redistricting, many fights loom (BILL HAMMOND, NY Daily News) Cuomo should give lawmakers an ultimatum: If they won't create an independent, nonpartisan redistricting commission at once, he will do it on his own.