Getting out the vote

Yesterday I talked about the PVI of this district being D+1 and the trouble that puts Rep. Vito Fossella in (he has the 12th least Republican district of any Republican in Congress). While this does not necessarily mean the Congressional candidate should trend towards a 1% advantage or even a 1% increase simply because it is a Presidential election year, it does provide yet another hurdle Fossella will face.

Revisiting some analysis from back in December 2005, I pointed out this bit of information;

If the Kerry/Edwards voters continued to vote down the ballot, last year's results would have been 55%-45% for Fossella (vs. Barbaro), instead of 59%-41%. Fossella and Bush had nearly indentical vote totals in each Assembly District, there was about a 6% drop off for the Democratic challenger Barbaro from Kerry's numbers in each Assembly District.

With a strong ground game (see WFP's efforts in the Craig Johnson race), and some basic voter awareness, we have the potential to be starting off at 55-45%, although the district has been trending more Democratic since 2004 and those numbers in reality are probably a percentage closer. Remember this is a district that went for Gore in 2000, so it is not improbable that a strong Democratic effort paired with a non exciting Republican (anyone other than Giuliani) and this Congressional race could be at 55-45 if not 54-46 before we account for the dynamics of the Vito's corruption and the Democratic nominees strength.