After Giuliani, GOP Senate Regroups to Keep Majority

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Rudy Giuliani's withdrawal from New York primary ended his chance to ride the top of the statewide ballot in November and is another fresh blow to Republicans hoping to keep their decades-long majority in the state Senate.

"Giuliani at the top of the ticket, at least outside New York City, is a real, real plus," said Maurice Carroll of the Quinnipiac University polling institute. "But it's gone. I don't think McCain will be a drag, but the 'America's mayor' aura and the strength of Giuliani looked good for the Republican ticket."
Many say flat out that Democrats will take the state Senate in November. They point to the Democrats' growing 5:3 voter advantage statewide the surprise resignation of one veteran Republican and the announced retirement of another in recent weeks.

Republicans are left with a one-seat majority in the 62-seat house in the otherwise Democrat-controlled state government.

"It seems to me that the majority is gone, in one way or another," said Douglas Muzzio of Baruch College of the City University of New York who specializes in voter behavior. "Democrats are putting a lot of money into these downstate districts," he said, referring to districts in Queens and on Long Island, "where all the old guys are ready to topple."
Muzzio discounts state Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno's strategy of appealing to voters to keep Republicans in charge as a check on Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Democrat-controlled Assembly.
"Most voters do not think of these sophisticated, balance equations," he said.

"It is clear that Senate Republicans were counting on Rudy Giuliani to bring out the vote," said Curtis L. Taylor, spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Malcolm A. Smith. "Rudy dropping out of the presidential race was a big blow."
But private law firms are filled with people who felt they could knock Bruno out.

"Underestimating Joe Bruno is done at one's own peril," advised Steven Greenberg of the Siena College poll.
Siena's January poll shows the Giuliani loss isn't catastrophic. New York Republicans were already moving toward McCain when Giuliani was tanking. McCain, like the former New York City mayor, can appeal to New York's more moderate flavor of Republican including those in the New York City suburbs where GOP state senators need coattails to ride.
"I think it builds on Giuliani support," Bruno said. "You have two now in New York, instead of just Rudy. You now have McCain as a partner for us."

Bruno said McCain could also draw more conservative and independent New Yorkers to the polls. That was a tougher task for Giuiliani, who supported some more liberal social positions including abortion rights.
"We're very upbeat and very positive about his benefit," Bruno said of McCain.

For a time, it appeared Republicans were strengthening their hold on the Senate after Bruno spent 2007 turning back the Democratic tide that helped Democrats sweep statewide races in November 2006. Giuliani, himself atop the early polls in 2007, was a big part of Bruno's plan to drum up votes and cash for the 2008 legislative races.

Yet in the last three weeks at least some of that unraveled.
Veteran Republican Sen. Jim Wright of Watertown announced his retirement, then postponed it a couple weeks rather than risk a special election on Tuesday's primary day that could draw too many Democrats.
Then last week veteran Republican Sen. Mary Lou Rath of suburban Buffalo announced that she would be stepping down at the end of her term Dec. 31. That opens up a level fight come the fall elections in the district with 86,604 Republicans and 78,631 Democrats.

Surprisingly, Democrats have a real chance in both races.
Rath's move upset some Republican senators. They would have preferred that she retire immediately to set up a quiet special election that would have at least given them a chance to focus on retaining the seat, then building up the new Republican during the session.
So even if the Republicans win the Rath and Wright seats, they do so at the expense of time, effort and money that they can't afford to spread thinner. And they still need resources to fight off anticipated and serious Democratic challenges to Republican seats like those held for decades by Sens. Serphin Maltese of Queens and Caesar Trunzo of Suffolk County.

Democrats also seem more secure these days in their recently won seats in Westchester and Onondaga counties — both of which were long held by Republicans.

And all of this teetering of the Republican majority assumes there will be no more surprises, like Maltese, Trunzo or any number of other retirement-age GOP senators figuring a decade or two of Albany is more than enough for their families or their health.

"Clearly these are district-by-district races," Miringoff said. "But right now it looks like Democrats are very eager to show up and Republicans are not."