Republican Jane Corwin and Democrat Kathy Hochul met Wednesday night for their final debate before the May 24 vote to replace Republican Rep. Chris Lee in New York’s 26th district. As it has for weeks, the conversation focused overwhelmingly on the budget passed by House Republicans that would, among other things, abolish Medicare.
Hochul has ran almost her entire campaign on defeating a Republican proposal to cut Medicare benefits and turn it into a voucher program while Corwin has dinged her for supporting higher taxes on the wealthy. The debate fell mostly into these predictable lines.
“I have made a commitment that I will take to my grave that I will fight any plan that tries to decimate Medicare,” Hochul said at the start.
“We have to take action and what my opponent is advocating is for us to do nothing,” Corwin said. “Raising taxes is not going to cover it. We cant raise enough taxes to fix the problem with Medicare.”
Tea Party candidate Jack Davis, whose significant support in the polls is threatening to turn reliably red NY-26 to the Democrats, wasn’t at the debate but his presence was still felt. Last week, Corwin’s campaign manager released a short clip that he alleged showed Davis threatening and then assaulting him after being confronted with a camera over why he didn’t attend a political debate. Davis has demanded the campaign release the rest of the tape, claiming he was harassed.
The issue came up in the debate on Wednesday. Corwin denied she had any knowledge of her campaign manager’s plan to follow Davis with a camera and that the video “speaks for itself.” Hochul said she would have fired her own aide if they had done the same thing.
Davis is looking to make his mark on the airwaves this week with one of the most depressing political ads in recent memory. The TV spot, promoting his isolationist platform, depicts a father revealing to his family that he’s lost his job to China — and it only gets worse from there. The mother in the ad reveals she has cancer and may not be able to afford chemotherapy anymore as her horrified children ask whether she’ll be OK.
Davis may be running on the Tea Party line but his candidacy has split Tea Party groups in the region. The national Tea Party Express endorsed Corwin and Tea Party icon Rep. Allen West (R-FL) recently recorded an appeal on her behalf.
As the race enters its final week before the May 24 vote, independent groups are upping their investment. The NRA (backing Corwin) and SEIU (backing Hochul) have both sent out mailers in recent days, according to FEC reports, while conservative Super PAC American Crossroads announced its going on the air with new ads, targeting Davis and Hochul. The latest Crossroads buy pushes their total contribution to the race to $700,000. A progressive Super PAC, House Majority PAC, is also planning to pour money into the race although the amount is still unclear.
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
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