Sean Eldridge

Moderate Republican Chris Gibson-- and a glance at ProgressivePunch voting records show he is the only actual moderate left among House Republicans-- won't be running for reelection in 2016. In fact, yesterday he announced that he will be retiring from Congress at the end of this term.

The first big New York Times coverage of Sean Eldridge's campaign for the Republican-held blue seat in the upper Hudson Valley/Catskills (NY-19) killed his race among actual progressives. This sentence went over especially badly for many: "Mr.

As far as we know, so far Sean Eldridge spent $4,659,027 in his failed NY-19 congressional run ($2,840,000 of which was from his personal wealth). His opponent, Chris Gibson, who spent $1,798,884, was an early DCCC target because the district has a PVI of D+1 and because Obama won the district twice, 175,800 (53%) to 150,359 (45%) against McCain and 157,279 (52%) to 138,384 (46%) against Romney.

In the final week of the midterm election cycle, House Republicans are on the offensive and an abysmally-led DCCC is retreating almost everywhere.

I don't know why the NRCC is wasting money on TV ads against Lower Manhattan multimillionaire Sean Eldridge in the Hudson Valley. You can watch it above. Eldridge will be lucky if he breaks 40% in November, very lucky. Although the district is blue and Obama won it against McCain in 2008 and against Romney in 2012, Eldridge has run a sappy, messageless campaign that's accomplishing nothing but making a bunch of slimy political consultants richer. The only publicly available polls show mediocre Republican backbencher Chris Gibson absolutely creaming him.

This morning Alex Isenstadt did a provocatively titled article for Politico, The Worst Campaigns of 2014. How hard is it to point to Eric Canter's loss and laugh your ass off now? Or Pat Roberts'? Or Chris McDaniels'?

Sean at home in his $5 million dollar Soho loft-by Concerned Monticello DemocratAs far as campaign budgets go, Sean Eldridge has more money than God. Or, to be more precise, $3,069,179 raised so far ($1,340,000 from his own bank account); $962,959 already spent, albeit mostly wasted on over-priced consultants taking him for a ride; and $2,106,220 cash-on-hand, all as of the June 30 filing deadline.

Chuck and Sean-- haimish?Monday the New York State AFL-CIO rolled out its congressional endorsements, It endorsed all the Democrats-- almost.

After college, a whole lot of friends of mine chose to move out of NYC and raise their families in the northern Hudson Valley. The ones who moved up to Dutchess, Ulster and Columbia wound up in a quintessential swing district, NY-19. The district is 89.7% white and the median household income is $53,769, a bit below the state's $55,246.

Monday we did two posts about the problem climate deniers pose for normal people-- the first one here and the other one here.