N.Y. Congressional race defies expectations
By Phil Hirschkorn & Elaine Quijano
AMHERST, N.Y. - Democratic congressional candidate Kathy Hochul considered herself an underdog when she began her race for the House of Representatives seat vacated by Christopher Lee, the married congressman who resigned after being caught placing shirtless personal ads on Craigslist earlier this year.
The race was expected to be an easy one for Republican Jane Corwin. Instead it's turned into a $9 million campaign and a proxy for the national debate over the House Republican budget, complete with a Tea Party twist.
The latest poll of New York's Republican-leaning 26th District, which stretches from the Buffalo suburbs to Rochester, showed Hochul with a slight edge over Corwin and Independent Jack Davis.
The Sienna College survey of likely voters released Saturday found 42 percent preferred Hochul and 38 percent were for Corwin, while 12 percent supported Davis, who is running on the state's Tea Party ballot line.
"The priorities that I have are aligned with the people of this district, regardless of party affiliation," Hochul told CBS News in an interview. "I am not a hyper-partisan person."
The 52-year-old Hochul, a lawyer, was once a legislative aide to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and is now the Erie County Clerk.
In a race that may be turning on the issue of reforming Medicare, Hochul believes some voters may be experiencing buyer's remorse following the Republican sweep into controlling the House of Representatives.
"I really think that people who put their faith in the Republicans last November have seen what's been happening since January," Hochul said, referring to the latest House Budget authored by Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan.
"Their priorities - which are encapsulated in that Ryan budget - are not in line with the Republicans. Independents and Democrats in my district," Hochul said.
Her steady attack on Republicans' Medicare reform is that, for Americans currently under 55, it would replace the government-run health insurance program for citizens over 65 with a voucher system. "End Medicare as we know it, and convert a guaranteed health insurance plan to a program that's 'You're on your own with insurance companies. Here's an $8,000 voucher; you're on your own, good luck,'" Hochul said.
In a district where 40 percent of registered voters are over 55 years old, her message has gained traction.
The Sienna College poll found likely voters in the 26th District ranked it their top issue, just ahead of jobs and cutting the federal budget deficit.
Republican candidate Jane Corwin, 47, a member of the New York State Assembly, has bristled at the Medicare critique, and denies she is for vouchers.
"That is a complete lie," Corwin told CBS News in an interview. "She [Hochul] doesn't offer a plan of her own. She is content to sit back and just kick the can down the road and let Medicare go bankrupt in 13 years."
Republicans rely on the annual Medicare trustees' report, released on May 13, which stated that the hospital insurance trust fund could be insolvent in 2024, five years earlier than previously predicted.
Bleaker outlook for Social Security, Medicare
"I'm trying to preserve Medicare," said Corwin. "I am supporting a plan that will make sure that seniors today receive the benefits they expect, but that the plan is around for the future. If it's not a perfect plan, and I'm sure it isn't, I'm open to modifying it or changing or improving."
Besides the Medicare debate, Corwin's expected road to Washington has encountered another major roadblock: Jack Davis.
Davis, 78, a Marine veteran and manufacturer of heating elements for industrial furnaces, has spent $3 million running on the Tea Party line. He vehemently attacks free trade policies as hurting the nation's manufacturing base, and is against proposed agreements with Korea, Panama and Colombia.
"Believe me, it's not going to get better until we change our policies," Davis told CBS News in an interview. "Working men and women in this country know free trade is a job killer."
Davis has run for this seat three times before as a Democrat, earning 48% in a losing effort in the 2006 general election. He said he did not run this year to be a spoiler, but he appears to be drawing vital conservative support away from Corwin.
He said if elected he would caucus with Republicans but would not vote for any changes to Medicare or Social Security.
"I believe in smaller government, lower taxes, cutting spending," Davis said. "What we're trying to do is save jobs, farms and industries."
Corwin, who helped run a family business for three decades, has tried to shift the electorate's focus back to the deficit and jobs, in a district that for decades has seen an erosion of manufacturing jobs.
For example, the Delphi auto parts plant in Lockport currently employs 2,500 workers, down from its peak of 10,000 in the late 1990s.
Corwin's family-owned company, the Buffalo-based Talking Phone Book, employed 700 people in 10 states prior to its 2004 sale to Hearst Corp.
"I understand what it takes to make a payroll," Corwin said. "It's very important to get people in government who aren't career politicians, who haven't been coming up through the ranks their whole lives."
Corwin signed Americans for Tax Reform's pledge to lower tax rates and reform the tax code. She says Hochul supports President Obama's tax increases while being silent on federal spending cuts.
For her part, Hochul says the Republicans "are willing to balance our budget on the backs of seniors while not even touching millionaires and billionaires" on their Bush-era tax cuts.
The 26th District was just one of six in New York to vote for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, and one of only four in the state to vote for McCain in 2008, giving the Republican 52% of its votes in the Empire States.
House Speaker John Boehner visited the district two weeks ago to invigorate Republican turnout for Corwin.
"Jane will work with us to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and the liberals in Washington, D.C.," Boehner told a May 9 fundraiser.
In addition to Corwin devoting nearly $3 million of her own money to the campaign, outside conservative groups, including the Karl Rove-led American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have collectively chipped in another $1.2 million, primarily for TV ads attacking Hochul and Davis.
Outside liberal and union groups have spent $750,000 on ads and get-out-the-vote efforts for the Democrat.
"Are we going to elect someone with our values?" U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from upstate New York, asked a crowd at a United Autoworkers hall rally on Saturday in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst.
"The families and small business owners here deserve someone they can count on," Gillibrand said. "They deserve someone with real integrity and accountability. That is Kathy Hochul."
On Tuesday, Hochul will find out if the 26th District agrees.