Unbelievable on multiple levels. First, what on Earth was the Democratic Governor of NY thinking appointing someone from a swing district to the Senate (especially when I think Louise Slaughter was a much better candidate)? Next, given the general low turn out for special elections, we would have expected a repeat of what happened with the GA special election -- the natural registration advantage asserts itself. Here, registered Rs outnumber registered Ds 2-1. In fact, the R candidate, Tedisco, was initially leading by 20-points in opinion polls over the relatively unknown D candidate Murphy.
Unbelievably, with 100% of the precincts reporting, Murphy has finished with a 65 vote lead. There were 6000 absentee ballots distributed, so it will be a few days before an actual winner is declared. Absentee ballots were required to be postmarked March 30, so some may still be arriving.
