The 24th Congressional District Race is Heating Up

According to a new poll done by Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard and Siena College Republican John Katko has surged past Democrat Dan Maffei. This is very important, as Election Day is only a couple weeks away. This is alarming for Democrats as Dan Maffei had an 8-point lead in a joint poll only five weeks ago. The 24^th Congressional District Race has become so competitive that it has picked up national attention. According to the Sunlight Foundation, outside spending from the national political parties and PACs ranks the 21st highest total among the 435 House seats up for grabs in this year's mid-term election. Combined with the campaign spending done by both candidates, $6.4 million has been spent on the race. The increased competition in this senate race has sparked the interest of both the National republican Congressional Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The NRCC has allocated $258,000 in television airtime on Rochester television networks in order to get Republican voters to vote in Wayne County. The DCCC has allocated $233,000 in television airtime to help out Dan Maffei.

One of the reasons why Katko was able to surge past Maffei was Katko’s ability to gain support from independent voters who had no affiliation with either political party. Katko surprisingly was able to erase the gender gap, which loses a lot of votes for Maffei. This could be due to the recent television commercials that have aired where Katko explains his stand on the issues of equal pay for Women, abortion, and the access to contraception.  A recent poll shows that Katko has 49 percent of the women’s vote, compared to 44 percent of the women’s vote going to Maffei.

Here is a link to one of those television advertisements: http://vimeo.com/107720559