# How did Turner (R) win Weiner's vacated seat in the NY 9th district? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 14, 2011, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282 "2011-09-14T13:18:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/1 "2011-09-14T13:18:13Z")
> **[Will GOP win in N.Y. have impact on Obama, Democrats?](http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2011/09/bob-turner-new-york-special-election-obama-/1)** > > Republican Bob Turner says his surprise victory in a special election for Congress will resonate next year as his party tries to defeat President Obama. Democrats say Turner's upset win in New York won't have any resonance. I thought that was a hardcore democratic district. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/2 "2011-09-14T13:22:00Z")
By resurrecting the phony “Ground Zero Mosque”. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/3 "2011-09-14T13:25:17Z")
But if the majority of the people in that district are die hard dems…for decades, how could the 9/11 card caused people to switch their vote? I don’t buy it. I believe that it was the economy not the 10th anniversary of 9/11. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/4 "2011-09-14T13:45:30Z")
Do you know why there was an election there? Why the former rep resigned? ---
**Author:** ![Phatlewt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a698b9/32.png) [@Phatlewt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatlewt)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/5 "2011-09-14T13:50:45Z")
Simply put, It’s not a hardcore Democratic district. It’s a Democratic district, but by a small margin. NY-9 is pretty affluent, and has a high percentage of orthodox Jews. Money and religion (the big lie of Obama’s perceived lack of support for Israel in particular,) are things that Republicans do well on. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/6 "2011-09-14T14:15:44Z")
> [@Phatlewt](#): > > Simply put, It’s not a hardcore Democratic district. It’s a Democratic district, but by a small margin. > > NY-9 is pretty affluent, and has a high percentage of orthodox Jews. Money and religion (the big lie of Obama’s perceived lack of support for Israel in particular,) are things that Republicans do well on. That gibes with what Nate Silver wrote in his [538.com](http://538.com) column in the NY Times yesterday: > [@](#): > > 1. New York’s Ninth Congressional District has highly unusual demographics, with a set of local issues that are unlikely to extrapolate well to the rest of the country. > > On the other hand, while all Congressional districts have their quirks, New York’s Ninth is especially unusual. > > First, there are the local issues — Barack Obama’s positioning toward Israel, Mr. Weprin’s endorsement of a plan to build a mosque and Muslim cultural center in Lower Manhattan, and possibly gay marriage — that will resonate more in Queens than they will in the rest of the country. > > Roughly 40 percent of voters in the Ninth District are Jewish, 20 times the rate in the country as a whole. Moreover, and perhaps more important, many of those voters are Orthodox Jews, who often have starkly different political viewpoints than Reform or secular Jews, and who are extremely rare in the United States outside a few spots in the New York region. > > There’s also the fact that the district was already behaving unusually in 2008. Despite having a 37-point edge in party registration, Mr. Obama won the election by only 11 points there — barely better than the seven-point edge he had nationwide. I doubt that there was any district in the country, perhaps outside a few remnants of the “Solid South,” where so many enrolled Democrats voted against Mr. Obama. > > Mr. Obama’s unpopularity is no doubt a huge factor in this race. But certain types of critiques are likely to be disproportionately resonant in this particular district compared with others. [Link](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/7 "2011-09-14T14:19:00Z")
> [@Phatlewt](#): > > Simply put, It’s not a hardcore Democratic district. It’s a Democratic district, but by a small margin. > > NY-9 is pretty affluent, and has a high percentage of orthodox Jews. Money and religion (the big lie of Obama’s perceived lack of support for Israel in particular,) are things that Republicans do well on. You consider a 3 to 1 advantage a small margin? Because that’s the margin that Democrats outnumber Republicans there. This was a referendum on Obama and his economic policies. This is just as big a sign as the election of Scott Brown was. Hate to throw some truth onto the liberal talking points, but you need to be worried. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/8 "2011-09-14T14:27:31Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Do you know why there was an election there? Why the former rep resigned? So the democratic candidates were tainted by Weinergate? Seriously? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/9 "2011-09-14T14:28:31Z")
> [@Phatlewt](#): > > Simply put, It’s not a hardcore Democratic district. It’s a Democratic district, but by a small margin. > > NY-9 is pretty affluent, and has a high percentage of orthodox Jews. Money and religion (the big lie of Obama’s perceived lack of support for Israel in particular,) are things that Republicans do well on. Okay…that makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/10 "2011-09-14T14:58:32Z")
> [@Smitty](#): > > This was a referendum on Obama and his economic policies. Unlikely a significant contributor. Weprin is an Orthodox Jew in practice, but is in favor of gay marriage and the mosque at Park 51, in other words highly suspect. This was pushed even further when former Mayor Ed Koch (D) urged Jewish voters to support his opponent Turner, believing Weprin to be somehow insufficiently pro-Israel and in response to what he considered a hostile attitude to Israel by the White House. In addition, Weprin was a former banker and member of boards for both securities and banking, more tied to the economic meltdown in the minds of New Yorkers than anywhere else. Turner, on the other hand, was relatively unknown and had spent his entire career in TV and advertising. > [@Smitty](#): > > Hate to throw some truth onto the liberal talking points, but you need to be worried. If this is indicative of how the 2012 election will go, then I agree. I can’t imagine a worse fate for the country than for it to be overrun with the crop of currently popular “easy answers to complex problems” republicans. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/11 "2011-09-14T15:46:53Z")
As I was walking into the room with the voting booths yesterday, I saw a mother and daughter exiting, both of whom I know to be Tea Party nutters, so I had a bad feeling about this one–the nutters were out in force. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/12 "2011-09-14T16:16:10Z")
[John Podhoretz](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sorry_excuses_can_conceal_truth_l6ZG43QTa2fijQs2VIzaXL) listed the 3 main reasons, giving both factions their talking points a day before the poll opened: [ol] [li]David Weprin, is a lousy candidate.[/li][li]Israel played an outsized role.[/li][li]Special elections don’t mean much nationwide.[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/13 "2011-09-14T18:28:15Z")
> [@Phatlewt](#): > > Simply put, It’s not a hardcore Democratic district. It’s a Democratic district, but by a small margin. > > NY-9 is pretty affluent, and has a high percentage of orthodox Jews. Money and religion (the big lie of Obama’s perceived lack of support for Israel in particular,) are things that Republicans do well on. Seriously? The registered voters of NY-9 are 3 to 1 Democrats. And the district had been held by a Democrat for more than 80 years. All you can do is some hand waving with a little bit of ‘Rich Jews’ thrown in? This is significant. ---
**Author:** ![Phatlewt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a698b9/32.png) [@Phatlewt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phatlewt)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/14 "2011-09-14T20:51:10Z")
Did someone say that this isn’t significant? It’s worth noting that the 3:1 registration advantage here in NY-9 rarely gives a 3:1 election victory for congressional or presidential elections. The district went for Obama by only 10% in 2008 and for Kerry by the same in 2004. (The district only went for Gore by 2:1 in 2000, when Gore’s running mate was Lieberman, a popular figure in NY-9) Even Weiner, who was popular before emailing his wang around, only usually won by a 2:1 margin when he faced a Republican challenger. Why does registration not translate to electoral turnout here? I thought this was an interesting theory that I read in a comment on the 538 blog… It’s anecdotal, but sensible. I wonder if there’s much truth to this… > [@"\[Some](#): > > ([http://community.nytimes.com/comments/fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/race-to-replace-weiner-down-to-the-wire/?permid=19#comment19](http://community.nytimes.com/comments/fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/race-to-replace-weiner-down-to-the-wire/?permid=19#comment19))"]It should be pointed out that many Republican voters in our district, in fact in much of New York City, register Democrat. Why? Because so much of local politics is Democrat-heavy, the only way they feel they can have a voice in City elections is to vote in the Democratic primaries. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/15 "2011-09-15T01:28:05Z")
If this district is so narrow, so “could go either way,” could someone explain why it was last in Republican hands in the 1920s? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/16 "2011-09-15T01:55:47Z")
I think it was a perfect storm, and probably not the most predictive nationally; but to say the district is “marginally Democrat” is just an absolute, complete, utter lie. It has been held by a Democrat since before I was born, hell since _before my mother could vote_ and has a 3-to-1 ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans. That being said, the GOP win here was a perfect storm that was the result of: 1. A disgraced Democrat congressman being forced to resign, which definitely hurts a little bit (although throughout Weiner’s troubles I remember various polls coming out showing more than 50% of his constituents thought he shouldn’t resign.) 2. A weak Democratic candidate. 3. A fairly strong GOP candidate who received public endorsement and support from various prominent Democrats. 4. A district that is disproportionately concerned about the U.S.'s position on Israel, and a campaign that successfully highlighted this issue in a way to make voters feel they needed to vote Republican to be voting pro-Israel in this one. 5. The general weakness of the Democratic party right now nationally, especially President Obama’s weak approval ratings. In a district like the NY 9th that is so overwhelmingly Democrat, not one of those issues above would be enough to have seen this result, it really did require all of them. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/17 "2011-09-15T02:10:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > If this district is so narrow, so “could go either way,” could someone explain why it was last in Republican hands in the 1920s? Who do you think you’re quoting there? Could you point out who said that in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/18 "2011-09-15T03:21:07Z")
Guys, credit where credit is due: Thanks, Obama!!! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/19 "2011-09-15T05:04:40Z")
You’re not only counting your chickens before they hatch, your rooster is gay. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2011, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282/20 "2011-09-15T05:17:37Z")
Now if you can get America to be a majority Jewish country, the Republicans will have smooth sailing. Was it significant a few months ago when a different NY congressional district, with a disgraced representative stepped down and even Sarah Palin campaigned for the Republican candidate and he lost to the Democrat? I’m not sure what reaction you Republicans want from us Democrats on this? Do you want us to cry or something. The state senate had already decided that this district NY-9 would go away with the redistricting NY will do as we lose a seat in the house. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-turner-r-win-weiners-vacated-seat-in-the-ny-9th-district/596282.md?page=2)