Background: Republican Christopher Lee rather abruptly resigned from that seat over, of all things, a Craigslist ad (well, that and the attempts at adultery associated with it).  It’s a fairly reliably Republican district – Lee first won it in 2008, which was not exactly a great year for a Republican to win an open seat in the Northeast – so any real hope that the Democrats have of winning the seat in a special election* would be in a GOP split.  Enter former Democrat Jack Davis, who is… um.  Yes.  Yes, I think that ‘um’ is really the word, here, based on evidence ranging from his novel views on agricultural policy to his hiring practices (kind of NSFW, that last link).  Davis is trying to run on his own line (‘Tea Party,’ which is the hot, trendy designation these days) using petitions: the major argument against him being an obvious Democratic plant is that surely even New York Democrats aren’t that dumb.  Or don’t have better recruiters, at least**.

Fortunately, the state GOP party had a collective rush of oxygen to the brain and went with Jane Corwin, who is currently the state Assemblywoman for that district.  As a state legislator she was supported by both the GOP and NY’s Conservative Party (NY state election law gives third parties considerably more power than average): and, in fact, she has just been endorsed by the Conservative and Independent Parties for the special election.

The special election will be May 24th.  I suspect that it’s Corwin’s to lose, and that she won’t.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*As a reminder: state law for special elections has the party leadership pick their party’s candidates.  There is no primary.  If this annoys you and you’re a New York resident, by all means: get a working majority elected in New York for the purpose of changing the law.

**There’s also potentially David Bellavia, who is distinct from Davis by being neither arguably racist, nor apparently insane; but he’s fatally hampered by the fact that Corwin simply isn’t a disastrous pick by the state GOP, or even a bad one.