The Conservative Party candidate for New York’s District 23 congressional race is now leading the race, according to a new poll referenced in this Washington Post column.
Doug Hoffman leads Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava. Hoffman has been endorsed by Sarah Palin. Scozzafava has been endorsed by Newt Gingrich. The DNC has, of course, endorsed Owens and now sees Hoffman, not Scozzafava, as the key threat to victory. Here’s Chris Cillizza’s take from his Post column:
A Hoffman victory would send shock waves through establishment Washington.
Conservatives would tout it as evidence that the party wins when it embraces its core principles rather than runs from them. Republicans would tout Hoffman’s strength among political independents — his core of support at the moment — as a sign that GOP brand has bounced back with unaligned voters in advance of the midterms. And Democrats would almost certainly highlight the internal civil war that this race has spawned within Republican circles to argue that the party is (still) tearing itself apart.
What is key, in my view, is not the Republican vs. Democrat tug-of-war in this election cycle. It is the ascendancy of conservativism, as a new Gallup poll attests, and the rise of a new crop of conservatives.
