We have all been asking the DCCC to expand the playing field -- and finally it seems that they they finally did just that!

The DCCC's blog, The Stakeholder, reports that FOUR races in NY have become competitive enough for the DCCC to list them as the newest additions to the 'Red2Blue' list.

The NY-03, NY-19,NY-26, and NY-29 have been made into the new 'Red2Blue' races.

[More below]

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In one of the least unexpected moves of recent days, John McCain canceled a visit to Rochester on behalf of Tom Reynolds.  Couple this with the recent polls that show Reynolds down by double digits to challenger Jack Davis, the RNC pulling funds from underneath Reynolds, and with the recent pulling of Reynolds signs from mostly Republican yards, and one has to believe that Tom "I Didn't Do It" Reynolds is in dire straits.  

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There is something wrong with the image server on MyDD. I'll have the pciture that go along with this post just as soon as I can. Also, please continue helping me turn my backyard blue--Chris

This afternoon, Mark and I drove up to Batavia, NY in the heart of New York's 26th congressional district. Last night, Jonathan reported that the NRCC, chaired by Tom Reynolds, had given up on this district, held by Tom Reynolds. After visiting the district today, I can tell you that the NRCC is not alone when it comes to abandoning Reynolds.

Mark and I avoided the Thruway on our drive into Batavia, preferring to take back roads instead. As we drove through some of the most rural parts of the district, we began to notice the conspicuous absence of Reynolds signs. Not only was Democrat Jack Davis ahead something like 13-2 in yard solitary signs during our drive into Batavia, but signs for Reynolds were also notably absent in clusters of signs for other Republicans running in the area. It was common to see groups of signs for Faso (the Republican who will get crushed by Eliot Spitzer), Spencer (the Republican who will get crushed by Hillary Clinton), and a couple of local Republican candidates. However, no one in any of these clusters was there a Reynolds sign. Not once--both of the Reynolds signs that we did see stood alone on a private lawn. In fact, there were often gaps in the clusters of Republican signs where another sign once stood. Mark and I found at least two clusters where the wire that once held a sign now stood alone, without any sign. I think it is pretty safe to assume that the sign that had been removed was for Reynolds. Local Republicans are trying to disassociate themselves from Reynolds as much as possible. Reynolds has been abandoned.

While we were in Batavia, Mark and I stopped by to see our Grandma on our mother's side, Elizabeth Crane. She had just gotten out of the hospital, and her electricity had just been restored the previous day after the snowstorm. However, as we talked over tea and coffee, she said that she would still be working the polls on Election Day, just as she has every year for thirty years now. If my 86 year old grandmother who just got out of the hospital can work the polls to help make certain that every vote can be counted, everyone reading this blog can work as a volunteer in this election in some way.

As Mark and I were leaving town, we passed by a Christian bookstore. On the side of the bookstore were signs and posters for every Democrat on the ballot in the area, proving yet again that the secular, far-left, liberal elite is making the Democratic Party un-electable. Snark aside, it also led me to think about the meta-question I have been trying to answer on this trip: why is upstate New York turning blue? Along with the bookstore, my grandmother, who goes to church every morning, has always voted Democratic from what I know (for example, she threw out a piece of attack mail against Jack Davis that arrived in her mailbox while we were visiting). Being devout in upstate certainly does not seem to be associated with being conservative. I wonder if that is a change that happened recently, as the broader country has moved against Republicans, or if there was never much of a Christian right in upstate New York to begin with. I certainly don't remember encountering anything resembling the Christian right until I left upstate New York to attend college in the Philadelphia exurbs. Meeting fundamentalists was, um, something of a surprise to me.

There won't be national exit polls on this election, so it will be difficult to draw quick conclusions about the demographic shifts in the two coalitions that will have taken place since 2004. I expect that Democrats will have made significant gains in all areas, including frequent church-goers. This interesting things is that I think will happen without any significant or effective outreach to frequent church-goers on the party of national progressive and Democratic organizations. I don't see many more Democratic candidates talking faith and "values," but Democrats are still going to do a lot better among regular church goers. Will this simply be a temporary increase caused by disgust with the Bush administration and Republican trifecta? Is a more permanent shift in the interests of regular church goers themselves? Perhaps even more importantly, does it demonstrate that there are other ways to reach regular church goers other than to make overt public gestures of faith? There may be other things Democrats are doing, other than publicly wearing their faith as though it were a medal of honor, that are reaching the devoutly religious. Certainly, it would appear that in the NY-26, Tom Reynolds is being left behind by nearly everyone, including the devout. How much can we expect this pattern to extend beyond the specific districts involved in the Foley scandal, and how long will the aftershock of the scandal distance Republicans from their white evangelical base?

Next stop on my trip: Rochester Turning, Eric Massa and the NY-29.

Just how bad are things for Tom Reynolds, the New York Congressman who chairs the National Republican Campaign Committee? So bad, apparently, that he decided to skip out on his head-to-head appearance with Rahm Emanuel, his Democratic counterpart, on ABC's "This Week", as the AP's Hope Yen reports (hat tip: Crooks and Liars).

Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who heads the House Republicans' re-election effort, would have been the chamber's top GOP official on the Sunday talk shows. Booked weeks ago for ABC's "This Week," he confirmed his appearance on Wednesday. By Saturday, his office canceled without explanation and arranged for a substitute guest, Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., a network spokeswoman said.

A Reynolds spokesman said the New York congressman had flu-like symptoms. Reynolds, whose district covers a stretch of New York between the suburbs of Buffalo and Rochester, is now trailing his Democratic opponent, Jack Davis, by a 48-33 percent margin, according to a poll conducted by Zogby International for The Buffalo News.

Reynolds has been criticized by Democrats who say he did too little to protect a page from Foley, the Florida Republican who resigned Sept. 29 after the disclosure of his sexually explicit electronic messages to teenage former male pages. Foley is now under investigation by federal and Florida authorities.

Reynolds' retreat comes a day after he went on the air with an ad trying to apologize for his role in the Mark Foley scandal. It also comes on the same day as Zogby polling commissioned by The Buffalo News shows him trailing his Democratic challenger Jack Davis by 15 points, 48 percent to 33 percent. Even if we take the results of the Zogby poll with a grain of salt, which I would tend to recommend, SurveyUSA polling conducted midweek for WGRZ-TV Buffalo showed Davis leading by 5 points, 50 percent to 45 percent.

Whatever the polling shows, it's becoming increasingly clear that Congressman Reynolds' top priority is no longer fighting, perhaps in vain, to retain the Republican majority through his position at the NRCC but rather fighting, perhaps equally in vain, to retain his own seat in the House. Frankly, that fact should have a lot of Republican Congressional candidates very worried.

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Two very endangered Republican Congressmen, Tom Reynolds (NY-26) and Don Sherwood (PA-10) -- both of whose races the Cook Political Report downgraded to "toss-up" status yesterday -- have come out with ads apologizing for letting down their constituents.

It's an interesting strategy, partially owning up to part of a scandal to help deflect attention away from the remainder of the scandal (in the case of Sherwood the abuse allegations, in the case of Reynolds the allegation that he didn't do enough to confront Mark Foley with the information he had months ago). And while it's far from certain that these ads will produce their desired effects -- it could be that they seem too little, too late and actually end up reminding voters why they are unhappy with their Congressman -- given the fact that both Reynolds and Sherwood are currently trailing in the polls, it could be that they have no other option outside of admitting some guilt and hoping that voters will be in a forgiving mood.

Update [2006-10-7 19:13:17 by Jonathan Singer]: Apparently, Reynolds will holding a fundraiser for Sherwood this Thursday night. Nice.

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