Money flowing into NY-22 as poll shows race a dead heat
Things are heating up in upstate New York's 22nd Congressional District, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in new spending coming the same week that a new poll shows the race virtually tied.
In a poll released Thursday morning by Spectrum News and Siena College, Democrat Anthony Brindisi narrowly leads GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney by a margin of 46 percent to 44 percent.
Tenney's favorability rating is underwater, with 42 percent of likely voters viewing her favorably and 47 percent viewing her unfavorably. Brindisi, by comparison, has a similar favorable rating at 44 percent but is viewed unfavorably by 27 percent of likely voters.
Brindisi is holding his party together better than Tenney is and has more crossover appeal in the poll. He is winning 80 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of Republicans, while Tenney is winning 66 percent of Republicans and 14 percent of Democrats.
Independents are effectively split, with Brindisi leading 44 percent to 43 percent.
"In a district with 30,000 more Republicans than Democrats, incumbent Republican Tenney is barely holding her own versus Democratic challenger Brindisi, who leads 46-44 percent," Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said in a statement released with the poll.
"With huge outside money being spent on this race by both parties — and constant negative ads on both sides – there's no doubt this will be a barnburner till the end."
The district has a distinct-GOP lean — President Trump won the district by 15 points in 2016, but Tenney won her reelection by less than 7 points that same year and Democrats believe that Brindisi's strong candidacy could knock her off.
That heavy outside spending continues to be a major factor in this race — this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $93,000 on a new media buy in the district while the National Republican Congressional Committee dropped $300,000 on its own buy, which was also its first independent expenditure television ad this cycle.
The ad spending has been heavy so far, even before the new buys.
Republicans had a slight ad-spending edge in the district through Monday, before the new buys were filed. At that point, GOP groups and the Tenney campaign combined to spend $1.4 million on the airwaves compared to $1.1 million spent by Democrats and the Brindisi campaign.
Over the past week, Republicans have run ads touting Tenney as going to bat for the middle class, and attacks tying Brindisi, a state assemblyman, to convenient Democratic boogeymen in the state—former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democratic Party boss convicted on corruption charges, and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is typically demonized by state Republicans.
Brindisi's camp is running an ad featuring the congressman pushing back against attacks from the GOP, a spot describing him as bucking party leaders to kick Silver out, and an ad accusing Tenney of cowing to the cable provider Spectrum while in office.