in addition, CQ has moved the race to “Leans Democratic”

Also moving in the right direction were NY25, NY29, and NY20

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New York House Roundup
• 20th District. Both sides have begun slinging mud in the tightening race between four-term Republican Rep. John E. Sweeney and Democratic challenger Kirsten Gillibrand, which CQPolitics.com has re-rated to No Clear Favorite.

Gillibrand, an attorney and first-time candidate for public office, on Tuesday sent an open letter to Sweeney requesting he release information regarding police incidents earlier in his career, including an arrest for driving while intoxicated.

“In addition to releasing any and all records relating to these known events, I would also urge you to release any and all records relating to other run-ins with the law you may be hiding from voters,” she wrote.

It was another step in Gillibrand’s efforts to tie Sweeney to the “culture of corruption” tag with which Democrats have been trying to bedevil Republicans throughout the 2006 campaign. In fact, Gillibrand was an early entry, issuing accusations as early as last January that Sweeney was joining lobbyists on ski trips while ignoring the district’s problems.

The theme was picked up by the liberal political action group MoveOn.org, which included Sweeney in its “Caught Red-handed” publicity campaign in which the organization alleged that several Republican members are less than ethical.

Sweeney responded in kind with an ad entitled “Caught Red-faced,” which, based on increases in Gillibrand’s stock portfolio, branded her a “war profiteer helped by Washington groups bashing America.”

The contest is front and center for the national Democratic Party, which sees the upstate 20th as an only mildly Republican-leaning district — President Bush took a modest 53 percent there in 2004 — that is ripe for a partisan takeover. This is in sharp contrast to the Democrats’ approach in Sweeney’s three previous re-election campaigns, in which the incumbent cruised to easy wins over little-known and poorly funded challengers.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee lists the race in its “Red to Blue” program — its roster of highly competitive races that the party hopes to switch from Republican red to Democratic blue on electoral maps — and has spent $110,000 on the race in recent weeks. This spending has been bolstered by another $23,000 in independent spending by MoveOn.org, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.org, an affiliate of Congressional Quarterly.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has spent $26,000 in independent expenditures on the race.

• 29th District. Republican Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl Jr. — facing an aggressive challenge from Democrat Eric Massa in a race CQPolitics.com now rates as Leans Republican — faced off with his challenger Tuesday night in the second of four scheduled debates. At the event held in Elmira, the largest city in the heavily rural “Southern Tier” district, each candidate staked out his positions on issues ranging from war in Iraq to job creation.

The growing public dissatisfaction with Bush and his administration’s handling of the war in Iraq is a driving issue for Massa, a retired Navy officer and former Pentagon aide who strongly opposes the war.

Although the 29th is arguably New York’s most Republican-leaning district — Bush took 56 percent of its votes in 2004 — Massa is arguing that Kuhl is too conservative for his constituency.

A Congressional Quarterly study of House votes cast in 2005 found that Kuhl , in his first year in Congress, voted with the president 85 percent of the time on issues in which the president expressed a preference.

That was a bit above the 81 percent average for all House Republicans and was the second-highest score among the nine GOP House members from New York. It also exceeded the usual presidential support score for retired Rep. Amo Houghton, the popular and more moderate Republican who Kuhl succeeded with his 2004 victory.

Ryan Moses, executive director of the New York Republican Party, told CQPolitics.com that his campaign committee was keeping its eye on the race. But he added that he felt confident about Kuhl’s chances for re-election, stating that the first-term House member and former longtime state lawmaker has a record of delivering for the district’s voters.

“Randy Kuhl’s talking about issues that directly affect the Southern Tier, and that’s security and cutting taxes, and those are the issues he’s brought to forefront of his campaign,” he said. “His opponent, Mr. Massa, seems more focused on slinging mud.”

Still, the Democrats’ national House campaign unit, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has put the 29th on its list of “emerging races” to watch, though it has not yet spent any money on the race. Independent expenditures by the National Republican Congressional Committee and the liberal group MoveOn.org balanced out in advertising both for and against Kuhl.

Kuhl led Massa in overall fundraising as of Sept. 1, with receipts of $997,000 to the challenger’s $660,000; Kuhl also led in remaining cash on hand, by $582,000 to $263,000. The latest campaign finance reports, which will cover through the end of September, are due to be filed by Sunday.

• 24th District. Both parties are pouring resources into the tossup race to succeed retiring 12-term moderate Republican Rep. Sherwood Boehlert in central New York’s 24th District.

Last week alone, the National Republican Congressional Committee spent $186,000 on attack ads aimed at the Democratic nominee, four-term Oneida County District Attorney Michael Arcuri. Its partisan counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, spent $161,000 in ads against the Republican candidate, state Sen. Raymond A. Meier.

Running in a district represented by one of the least doctrinaire House Republicans for nearly a quarter of a century, each candidate is trying to frame himself as the real moderate. Democrats charge Meier’s record is more conservative than Republicans admit, while the GOP has tried to erode Arcuri’s reputation for integrity in his position as a prosecutor.

“Mike Arcuri has a less-than-stellar record, and it’s not what we need in Washington,” state GOP official Moses said.

A poll released by Arcuri’s campaign last month indicated he was leading by 15 percentage points, but no independent polls have confirmed the findings.

CQPolitics.com rates the race as No Clear Favorite.

• 25th District. Nine-term Republican Rep. James T. Walsh is facing a challenge from Democrat Dan Maffei, a well-connected former congressional staffer, in a contest that CQPolitics.com has rated as Republican Favored but is watching carefully for signs that the election is getting closer.

Democrats hopes for an upset hinge on the fact that the 25th District, in which the city of Syracuse is the population hub, has an overall profile that is politically competitive if not slightly Democratic-leaning. The district narrowly favored the Democratic presidential nominees over George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004.

Maffei — who formerly worked for New York Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1977-2001) and then for New York Rep. Charles B. Rangel, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee — is portraying Walsh as too conservative and too tied in with Bush.

But Walsh has a huge trump card that he has used to build a strong political foundation and that enabled him just two years ago to win re-election with no Democratic opposition: his senior position on the House Appropriations Committee, which has enabled him to take credit for federal funding for numerous local projects in the 25th.

Walsh trumpeted this credential in a debate between the two candidates on Wednesday night. Local media described the debate as relatively free of fireworks, perhaps somewhat surprising considering the preponderance of negative ads in the candidate’s campaigns.
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http://www.cqpolitics.com/2006/10/ny_roundup_sweeney_kuhl_among.html