Lake Ontario's shores aren't exactly downtown Dryden, but they saw an election today that I think has a lot to say to Dryden's current State Senator, Jim Seward.
For years, he's seemed impregnable in a district where registration was overwhelmingly Republican - at the last count, this Abraham Lincoln riding a vacuum cleaner gerrymander of a district has 51,346 registered Democratic votes to 77,656 Republican voters out of a total of 180,129 voters.
The 48th Senate District has 46,824 Democrats to 78,454 Republicans, out of a total of 171,062 voters. It tilts even more Republican than our district.
Tonight, it looks like Darrel Aubertine (D) pulled off a win in a special election up there, despite a snowstorm. Right now, the Syracuse Post-Standard is reporting 27,901 for Aubertine and 25,345 for his Republican opponent, Will Barclay. There are 4251 absentee ballots out there, but it would take a lot to change that result.
Even a moderately close race would have been a bad sign for our Republican State Senate, but an outright Democratic win has to be devastating for them.
I'm thinking that we can repeat this in November in the 51st, hopefully with Don Barber of Caroline as the Democratic candidate. I've felt that it was possible for a while, because of the presidential race this year, but now it feels really possible.
(Removing Joe Bruno will lower my blood pressure considerably; we just have to make sure that we don't re-create him. And removing Sheldon Silver would make me happy too, though I haven't yet figured out how that might happen.)
Oh, and if you want to help Don Barber take on Jim Seward, it's easy to make a contribution.
Posted by simon at February 26, 2008 10:14 PM in politics (state)