Soon-to-be Army Secretary John McHugh

It’s damn tough to be a Republican in New York these days. 

First the party lost a slew of Congressional seats in 2006. Then they surrendered control of the State Senate for the first time in two generations. This past winter they failed to regain the “most Republican” House seat in the state. And now this: President Obama has picked one of New York’s last three Republican Congressmen to be Secretary of the Army.

John McHugh has represented much of the northern third of the state since 1992 but has accepted Obama’s offer — and why not? Even with his seniority McHugh can’t be having any fun being in the impotent Republican minority. So Obama gets a twofer, right? Another Republican in his “bi-partisan” administration and another shot at adding to the Democratic majority in Congress.

Not so fast.

For all those thinking Democrats should have an easier time picking up McHugh’s district than they did the hotly-contested 20th when Kirsten Gillibrand was elevated to the Senate and Scott Murphy squeaked into her seat might want to parse the numbers.

The 23rd is not the 20th.

As Get Real repeatedly explained during both the campaign for the 20th special election and the lengthy post-election drama, the district had been changing fairly rapidly (in electoral terms) since 2001 with a heavy influx of city liberals in Columbia and Dutchess Counties and a similarly big increase in tech professionals in Albany’s eastern and northern suburbs. Everyone focused on the large registration advantage the GOP had in the 20th without paying much attention to the fact that there were more independent voters (combining unaffiliated and Independence Party registrants who often believe they are choosing to be “independent” as opposed to “Independents”) as Dems and that combined, they easily overtook Republicans.

The 23rd has a smaller GOP advantage among registered voters but also a much smaller pool of independents (43% Rep, 31% Dem, 24% ind in the 23rd versus 42% Rep, 27% Dem, 34% ind in the 20th). Certainly it is still true that Dem + ind is a greater sum than the Republican number in the 23rd but the composition of that independent vote is clearly different from that in the 20th. The 23rd has none of the urban second-home population that seems to have made a difference in the 20th (based on how hard the GOP fought to throw out ballots from them) and very little in the way of upscale tech voters.

The 23rd runs across some of the prettiest but poorest areas of rural upstate New York and is more solidly Republican than the 20th in a pretty important way: Elected officials. Although Democratic State Senator Darrel Aubertine stunned the GOP with his special election victory in 2008 only 2 of the 9 state Assembly members from the 23rd are Dems.

And remember Gillibrand won two elections in a row for the 20th before the special election this winter proving that Democrats stood a chance in the district. John McHugh has held the seat in the 23rd with barely a challenge from Democrats since 1992.

That being said, this isn’t a lock for Republicans if for no other reason than nothing in the northeast is a lock for the GOP these days. As TPM points out, Obama carried the 23rd by a bigger margin than he did in the 20th. And Aubertine’s special election win was followed by a solid regular election victory in November. But it will obviously come down to the candidates. The 20th stayed Democratic at least in part because the party ran a rich guy willing to self-fund his short campaign. There are all sorts of wild cards in specials but party discipline and organization can have a way of mitigating them.

Which brings us to the final point: Both parties are pretty screwed up in New York. Liz Benjamin does a great job digging through the early possibilities but it seems likely Republicans will choose a known vote-getter in the district (of which there are a few) while Democrats will be hard-pressed to put up their best known vote-getter, the previously mentioned Senator Aubertine. He’d be a pretty good choice save one tiny problem. Democrats hold onto control of the State Senate by one vote. If Aubertine’s seat goes to a special election Dems will be very hard-pressed to keep it and keep their majority (as Liz accurately notes). And what’s more important? Adding another Democrat to Congress where the party has a big, safe majority or keeping control of the State Senate — which they only just won for the first time since 1936?

Look for an easy GOP save here and plenty of chest-thumping from the RNC when they win it. After all it will be the first thing they’ve won since the November wipeout.