57-43

Forgive me for the slow posting, but I imagine there is not as much urgency with our readers now that election day has passed. Jumping head first into blogging a race consumes your life, and the past few days have been free of politics, or rather I have reduced my political intake. I have learned a lot in the past eleven months and this is definitely just the beginning of things to come with this district.

Stephen Harrison lost his race 57-43% against our favorite member of Congress, who still has nothing to show for all his time spent in D.C. This is the closest anyone has come to knocking off Vito, the previous was in 2004 in a bitterly divided presidential election when Frank Barbaro took 41%. I will crunch the numbers later this week and break down both money and voting patterns should any emerge.

In 2004 Barbaro had close to a $450,000 to Fossella's $1.2 million. In 2006 Fossella had nearly $1.3 million to Harrison's $109,000. Clearly financing this race is a major problem and most likely the top issue to address in 2008.

There is a positive take away from this race however and that is Janele Hyer-Spencer's win of the 60th Assembly seat. Her 700 vote margin of victory seemingly owes at least a small portion to the strength of the Congressional candidate up ticket. Had the Democrats not fielded a candidate, or fielded someone similar to their 2000, 2002 candidates I have to wonder if a Democratic pick up in the AD would have been possible. Of course there are many factors that lead to her victory and I don't mean to downplay the candidate or her campaign. Her victory whether or not in part due to the congressional race is great news for the next congressional match up in 2008.