N.Y. congressional test: Obama's win

by Mark Silva, updated with RNC Chairman Michael Steele's statement, and with President Obama's statement at 6:45 pm EDT.

In the quiet knolls of the upper Hudson River Valley where a nationally contested election played out, the contest for the vacated seat of a congressman in a district that had voted Republican for some time was painted as a test of President Barack Obama's agenda.


If that was the test, Obama has won.

There's one winner, for sure: Democrat Scott Murphy, who today claimed victory in the 20th Congressional District of New York, whose incumbent left to assume, by appointment of the governor, the former Senate seat of Hillary Rodham Clinton, now secretary of state for Obama.

Jim Tedisco, the Republican contender for the seat of now-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, conceded defeat today in a contest that ended so close that it took weeks to recount it.

The Republican Party had flooded the market with negative campaign ads tying Murphy to the Obama agenda and the Wall Street meltdown -- and the Obama agenda has won. The Democrats will be popping corks in the old Tin 'n Lint in Saratoga tonight.

"I'd like to thank President Obama and Vice President Biden for supporting my campaign and for their inspiring leadership for our country,'' Murphy said today.

Obama issued this statement about a congressional candidate whom he had helped win: "With this hard-fought win, Scott has shown he is willing to fight the tough battles on behalf of the people in his district.... As a candidate, Scott courageously championed the economic plans we need to lift our nation and put it on a better path, and he will continue to do so in Congress.

"With his proven record of creating high paying jobs and standing up for Upstate New York, Scott will bring to the nation's capitol the change New Yorkers need,'' the president said, framing the race as an agenda-builder.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who campaigned for Tedisco in the district, said: "The Republican Party must be competitive in districts like NY-20 if we are going to regain our congressional majorities.

"While we were unsuccessful in this race, the combined efforts of our candidate, the national and state parties and NRCC show that the GOP is going to invest the resources necessary to regain our majority in the U.S. House of Representatives."

I can't wait to start working with the president to deliver the urgently needed recovery funds to Upstate New York,'' Murphy said. "I look forward to rolling up my sleeves in Washington to bring jobs, opportunity, and prosperity back to Upstate New York."

""Scott Murphy's long-awaited victory is proof positive that Americans, even in this heavily Republican district, support the president and want him to succeed, and the result is a repudiation of the failed policies of the past touted by Republicans," said Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

"Republicans decided to make this race a referendum on President Obama's leadership of the economy and his jobs and economic recovery plan - and given the result we are thankful that they did,'' he said. " Scott Murphy embraced President Obama's approach to the economy and his message of change while his opponent embraced the politics of division and the failed economic policies that got our country into the mess we find ourselves in today.

Murphy, a venture capitalist in the small town of Glens Falls - where the local newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize this week for its editorials about the closed doors of local government - has defeated Tedisco, minority leader of the New York State Assembly, by only a handful of votes.

Although the seat was held by a Democrat, Gillibrand had some of what the local voters in a GOP stronghold were looking for - including her alliance with the National Rifle Association.

Obama formally endorsed Murphy in an email to supporters in and around the New York congressional district, encouraging people to volunteer for the Democrat's campaign.

Republicans account for 42 percent of the registered voters in the district, Democrats 26 percent, the DNC notes. Gillibrand was the first Democrat elected in three decades.

The Republican National Committee put $200,000 into Tedisco's campaign. The RNC chairman, Steele, campaigned for the GOP's candidate in the district twice. The GOP ran a lot of ads pounding Murphy, and by connection, Obama.
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While the parties argue over the meaning of the contest, New York has a new congressman.