The Daily Orange is a nonprofit newsroom that receives no funding from Syracuse University. Consider donating today to support our mission.

Over a month after Election Day, the race for New York’s 22nd Congressional District still isn’t decided.

Republican challenger Claudia Tenney leads Democratic incumbent Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-Utica) by 12 votes in a district with over 147,000 registered voters. While the final result of the election is still unknown due to legal challenges, Tenney has turned a 9-point deficit in polls into one of the tightest congressional races in the country.

Closer than expected

The only poll of the district, a Siena College/Syracuse.com poll taken between Sept. 27 and Oct. 4, gave Brindisi a 9-point lead that included a margin of error of 5 percentage points. Even including the margin of error, the poll was off by at least 4 points of the true result, as the candidates are now close to tied.

Kristi Andersen, a professor emeritus of political science at Syracuse University and a resident of NY-22, said the polling error falls in line with those seen around the country. Changes in response rate made it difficult to accurately poll a representative sample of the population.

“Many people are unwilling to respond to those taking polls, but up to this point, it didn’t look like there was a partisan difference,” Andersen said. “But this year, that’s what it looks like happened.”

Republicans — especially those who support Trump — are less likely to respond to polls due to the party’s popular anti-establishment rhetoric and distrust of the media, Andersen said. This contributed to polls, including the NY-22 poll, favoring Democrats in races which were in reality much closer than they seemed, she said.

Split-ticket voters, who voted for Joe Biden for president but also for Republicans down the ballot, could also explain why Tenney did better than polls anticipated, Andersen said. 

“Democrats lost a lot of seats which they had won in 2018,” she said. “In 2018, there was so much anti-Trump feelings among Democrats and Independents, but they couldn’t take it out on Trump, so they voted against people like Tenney. But in 2020, they could vote against Trump and take out their unhappiness at the Trump era, but they could still split their ticket.”

More expensive than ever

The two candidates spent a combined total of nearly $26 million on the race, which includes funds spent by outside organizations. While Brindisi had the upper hand in spending in 2018, outspending Tenney by just over $2 million, the figures were nearly even this time around.

When combining the amount spent by outside organizations and fundraising by candidates, Democrats had $13.32 million in the race compared to Republicans’ $13.01 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Shannon Kirkpatrick | Presentation Director

This is significantly more than Syracuse’s NY-24 congressional race, another close election. In that race, which was between Rep. John Katko (R-Camillus) and former SU professor Dana Balter, outside organizations spent $11.56 million in total.

While both Brindisi and Tenney had about the same amount of money in the race, Brindisi raised more directly for his campaign and Tenney had more help from outside spenders. Brindisi won the direct fundraising race by just over $2 million ($5.46 million to $2.05 million), whereas Tenney received $3 million more in outside support ($10.96 million to $7.96 million).

This disparity continues when looking at the largest donors from a geographic standpoint. While all of the 10 most common zip codes for direct donations to the Brindisi campaign are in New York state, only five of Tenney’s are. The other five zip codes were spread around the country, from Washington, D.C. to Arizona.

All negative, all the time

Differences in fundraising were most apparent in negative ad spending, as significantly more money was spent on negative ads than positive ads. Organizations supporting Tenney spent $3 million more on negative ads than Brindisi’s supporters did.

The cable company Spectrum was a hot topic in many of the ads for both campaigns. Tenney accused Brindisi of taking money from the company while it raised its rates in central New York, something Brindisi’s campaign claimed was misleading. At the same time, Brindisi disparaged Tenney for taking campaign donations from the company.

With over $17 million in outside funding of negative ad campaigns between both candidates, voters were bombarded by accusations from both sides.

Where to go from here

NY-22’s mass of contested ballots and communication difficulties combined for a perfect storm of problems that created the month-long election, Andersen said. While the district is an extraordinary case, it shows that New York’s policies on mail-in ballots may be flawed, something that can be improved with experience moving into the next election cycle, she said.

“In New York, we’ve never had very good laws regarding (mail-in voting),” Andersen said. “Counties can do what they want, and this is totally a good illustration of that. The state needs to get its act together.”

Despite that, mail-in voting isn’t going anywhere, Andersen said.

“It’s better to offer people a broader range of opportunities in voting” Andersen said. “One day of voting on a Tuesday was fine in farm communities in the mid-19th century, but it’s not working for us today.”

Still undecided

Although Tenney held a 28,422 vote lead on Election Night, counting over 50,000 absentee ballots from the district gave Brindisi a slim lead weeks after Election Day. Over time, as more disputed ballots have been processed, Tenney has come out with a 12-vote lead.

The legal challenges around the race, decided by New York State Supreme Court Judge Scott DelConte on Dec. 8, ensure the race will go undecided for even longer. The judge ordered that all previously uncanvassed ballots, approximately 1700, be canvassed and that the eight district boards of elections in NY-22 fix all errors in their counting processes. Canvassing ballots determines if they are valid and should be counted. 

Five of the eight counties have begun the recanvassing process as of Tuesday. A final result may not be known until mid-January or even February, according to Josh Rosenblatt of WBNG in Binghamton. New York State Courts take a recess from Christmas until New Years, delaying further legal challenges.

DelConte placed the blame for the delay in results on the eight boards of elections, which he said failed to follow state election law. Both candidates believe that they will still win the election once all valid ballots are counted, according to their statements to WBNG.

Published on December 16, 2020 at 1:52 pm

Contact Nick: [email protected] | @NickRobertsonSU