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Political Note #254 Tedra Cobb NY CD 21
2020 General Election
What do you call someone
- whose work as a counselor in a prison was particularly valuable because she spoke Spanish?
- who served as a volunteer fireman, probably reducing her property taxes?
- who worked as an AIDS counselor, encouraging those who might have that condition to get themselves tested?
- whose next focus was general health screening and testing?
- whose major political success was flipping a seat in the county legislature?
- That was a real success Upstate, wasn’t it?
- Whose major legislative success was ethics reform?
- That’s not unimportant, is it? She was to the New York State Committee on Open Government, not central to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s idea of political reform.
- Who ran and lost an attempt to unseat the incumbent Republican Member of Congress during the Blue Wave of 2018?
Call her an underdog.
Tedra Cobb https://www.tedracobb.com/ is running again. New York’s Twenty-first Congressional District. The district could define Upstate New York. Its Western border is Vermont. Its Northern border is Canada and the St. Lawrence River. Its northwestern border is Lake Ontario. Its western and southern border is less clearly defined. An arc made by connecting Syracuse, Utica, and Albany would have Utica at its apex, just a few miles from District 21. Syracuse and Albany are not many more miles south of District 21.
District 21 has four cities of its own: In round numbers:
- Watertown – 2010 population 27,000, estimate for 2018 25,000;
- Plattsburg – 2010 population 20,000, estimate for 2018 19,500,
- Glen Falls – 14,700 population, estimate for 2018 14,350
- Ogdensburg – 2010 population 11,000, estimate for 2018 10,500
This district is not thriving. It is hungry for change. In 2018, Obama carried it 58-40. Democrats had carried it convincingly every year since 1992. Trump carried the district 54-40. The Republican Member of Congress was elected two years before Trump – in 2014.
NY 21 is 92% white. Three percent black. Three percent Hispanic. Three percent were born outside of the United States. Twenty-two percent have a college degree — two-thirds of the percent in New York as a whole. Trump country.
Is Tedra Cobb an impossible underdog? She lost the money race in 2018 $2.8 million to $1.5 million (35% to 65%). She lost that race by more than she lost the popular vote (42% to 56%).
A few Democratic candidates who lost in 2018 who are running again in 2020. Few of those are running in circumstances that have changed as much as Tedra Cobb’s. The impeachment of the President and related controversies are central to the standing of NY 21’s incumbent.
Harvard graduate Elise Stefanic has already been displaced by one Democrat. Formerly the youngest woman elected to Congress, she was replaced by another 29 year old – Boston University graduate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.
The National Review says it would be impossible for Tedra Cobb to defeat and replace Stefanic.. Not only did Stefanic win overwhelmingly in 2018, most of those who didn’t vote, says the National Review, were not college educated. They were people who were natural Trump voters.
Stefanic, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, became a celebrity clashing with Adam Schiff during the impeachment hearings. She claimed “only one Committee member and that member’s staff had direct knowledge of the identity of the whistleblower. Because of that knowledge, Schiff was preventing witnesses from answering members’ questions. Schiff insisted he did not know who the whistleblower. Furthermore, he was intent in respecting the law and would prevent any effort to discover and make public speculation about any individual who might be the whistleblower.
In a later public session, Schiff stopped Stefanic from asking questions. She complained: “What is the interruption for this time? It is our time.” Schiff explained the rules only allowed Ranking Member Nunes or Counsel Steve Castor to ask questions at that particular time.
Stefanic got a tangible result from her celebrity. News reports said she received a half million dollars in donations. She was already leading Tedra Cobb in money raised — $1.3 million to $650,000.
Stefanic’s celebrity drew attention to Tedra Cobb. Local television reported Tedra Cobb raised $400,000 overnight and a total of $1 million in a few days. For Stefanic, the grapes were sour anyway. She tweeted she would choose “the North Country over Hollywood liberals like Rosie O’Donnell & Chelsea Handler every day of the week.”
Tedra Cobb may have enough resources to compete with Stefanic this time. She had already targeted Sefanic for her donors. News releases stated that opioid producers had donated $50,000 to Stefanic’s campaign, that corporate PACs were mainstays of the campaign. In the third quarter of 2018, Corporate donors had given just under $225,000. In comparison, there were only 70 local donors. Furthermore, during her poltical career, the healthcare industry had donated almost $400,000.
Tedra Cobb’s https://www.tedracobb.com/ campaign could report her campaign was more local. In the third quarter of 2018, she had 1,184 local donors. None were from the healthcare industry. None were from corporate PACs. She could, however, use more donations from anywhere. Think about giving her a contribution. Think about ways you can volunteer to help. Few Democratic victories in the House would be sweeter than defeating this Republican impeachment obstructionist.
Below are Congressional seats Democrats are trying to flip from incumbent Republicans. The ones with asterisks ran in 2018*
Congress
California 50 Ammar Camp-Hajjar* to beat incumbent Duncan Hunter
Florida 16 Margaret Good to beat incumbent Vern Buchanan
Illinois 13 Betsy D Londrigen* to beat incumbent Rodney Davis
Iowa 04 JD Scholten* to beat incumbent Steve King)
Michigan 06 Jon Hoadley to beat incumbent Fred Upton
Minnesota 01 Dan Feehan* to beat incumbent Jim Hagedorn
New York 21 Tedra Cobb* to beat incumbent Elise Stefanic
North Carolina 10 Dan McReady* to beat incumbent Dan Bishop, this time
Pennsylvania 10 Eugene DePasquale to beat incumbent Scott Perry
Texas 23 Gina Ortiz Jones* to win this open Republican seat
