Democrat Kathy Hochul won the 26th Congressional special election upstate in Buffalo, defeating Republican Jane Corwin in a Republican stronghold. The Buffalo News reports, with the headline, "Hochul takes House seat in stunner," that Hochul "defied political experts who had given her little chance of success, ground out a stunning and surprisingly comfortable victory," with 48% of the vote to Corwin's 42% with 87% of the districts reporting. And it's all thanks to one Congressman's shirtless photos and Craigslist date-searching (thanks, Gawker!) and another Congressman's Medicare overhaul ideas.
The NY Times paints this picture, "Democrats scored an upset in one of New York’s most conservative Congressional districts on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the national Republican Party in a race that largely turned on the party’s plan to overhaul Medicare. The results set off elation among Democrats and soul-searching among Republicans, who questioned whether the party should rethink its commitment to the Medicare plan, which appears to have become a liability as 2012 elections loom."
One woman told the Times, "I have almost always voted the party line. This is the second time in my life I’ve voted against my party." Another Republican who voted for Hochul said, "The privatization of Medicare scares me."
On Monday, House Majority Whip Eric Cantor told reporters, "I know this town loves to take signals from individual races. I think the best signal you can take is the 63 seats that we picked up in November," and then blamed Corwin's faltering numbers on the presence of Jack Davis, a previous Democrat candidate who ran on the Tea Party line.
