Steve Israel DCCC

DCCC Chair Steve Israel

Incredibly, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching a half-million dollar ad buy into New York City with one weekend to go until a special House election in NY-09, the seat once held by Anthony Weiner.

According to buy information obtained by Hotline On Call, the DCCC has made a $483,500 TV ad buy in the district, starting tomorrow through Monday. The broadcast TV buy will not air on September 11, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Democratic super PAC House Majority PAC has also bought advertising time in the district as well.

The fight to succeed disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner has turned into a neck and neck race in the Brooklyn and Queens district. Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin went up on air yesterday with a $270,000 buy on New York City broadcast television, as polls have shown Republican Bob Turner closing in, despite the district’s 133,000 Democratic voter registration edge.

You can see the ad here. It plays off Bob Turner’s recent comment that “I never met a loophole I didn’t like.” Half a million in what amounts to four days is a lot of coin. The election is on September 13.

I always thought, and in a way I continue to think, that Weprin will win this race. It’s true that Weprin had his share of gaffes, but only Republican polls have shown the race closer than six points. The overblown concern is reminiscent of the concern over Janice Hahn in CA-36, and in the end she won comfortably. However, in that race, the DCCC never jumped in. And they have to be in possession of some polling that tells them they need to raise Turner’s negatives. A SuperPAC associated with House Democrats is chipping in an additional $100,000. And I’ve been getting fundraising appeals from Democratic leaders all day.

Understand that this has an impact on not one, but two elections. There’s another special election in NV-02 on September 13, and a few weeks ago one PPP poll showed that a one-point race between Republican Mark Amodei and Democrat Kate Marshall. But the DCCC never budged, never sent resources, and Amodei has buried Marshall with ad spending. So the D-Trip concedes that race, probably because they were conserving funds for NY-09, which by all rights should have been a sleepy blowout.

That half a million dollars would have come in very handy next year, when Democrats make a push to take back the House, no? Instead, it’s being chewed up in the expensive New York City media market to protect a bad candidate whose district will probably get chopped up in redistricting anyway. This is a really bad scenario, and it’s largely because of the national malaise and weak numbers for the President and Democrats. Republican numbers aren’t better, but in a seat like NY-09, the Democrats are seen as the incumbents. And the nation is in an anti-incumbent mood.

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