Chuck Todd from Meet the Press weighs in on races including GOP spending $27,000 on Singletary ad buy at News10NBC

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Friday night starts the second to last weekend for campaigning before Election Day, and we are seeing competitive races like we haven’t seen in a long time. So, News10NBC wanted to get the insights of Chuck Todd from Meet the Press.

First, the race in the 25th Congressional District between Rep. Joe Morelle (D) and former RPD chief La’Ron Singletary (R).

Brean: “Chuck from where you sit, what do you think is going on in this congressional race?”

Chuck Todd, Meet the Press: “These New York congressional districts in particular are fascinating to me because they don’t contain a lot of swing voters even though they’re pretty evenly divided. You can almost see it in the closing messages where the republicans want to talk about the crime issue and democrats want to talk about abortion rights and democracy and so the only issue that has crossover appeal is the inflation issue.”

Brean: “So who are the candidates going after?”

Chuck Todd: “Look they’re looking to drive out their own turnout. I always say the undecided voter that both parties are looking for right now is the voter that hasn’t decided to show up.”

Thursday, the National Republican Campaign Committee bought ad time totaling $27,000 here at News10NBC to help Singletary. We can’t find evidence of the Republican Party spending that kind of money this close to an election in Rochester before not even in 2014 when Mark Assini nearly defeated Rep. Louise Slaughter. Todd says the money means the republicans think they can win this race.
       
“If republicans win control of Congress by a narrow margin, if this is not a wave elections, they’re going to win it in New York and Florida,” Todd said. “I’ve talked to republicans, even in the worst case scenario for them, where democratic turnout and republican turnout are even, they believe they’re going to win the House simply because they’re going to get three to five seats out of the state of New York alone. They need five to take over.”

The Morelle campaign says they knew the race would be close from the beginning. The Morelle campaign just purchased $25,000 worth of ad time at News10NBC. But the campaign purchased that, not the national party. Morelle’s campaign says they’ve been working closely with the national democratic party for six months.

Todd thinks all that national money for congressional races is helping Rep. Lee Zeldin, the republican party candidate for governor, challenging Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Brean: “Back in August, Kathy Hochul has a a 14 point lead give or take. In October, it was down to six. What’s going on here?”

Todd: “We talked about the congressional races. You’ve watched all these congressional ads, particularly the republican ads. They’re almost identical to the message Lee Zeldin is pushing particularly on the crime issue more than anything else. And I think Zeldin is really being helped out by all the investment the national party is making not in his race, he’s being way out spent. He does not have the resources to defeat Hochul. But the national party is putting so much money into the congressional races that it’s actually, this could be one of those things that end up trickling up.”

A poll from Emerson College released Friday puts Governor Hochul’s lead at six points.

Todd thinks Hochul is still carrying the Andrew Cuomo scandal baggage and his team at Meet the Press has calculated what that does to the person who follows the scandalous politician.

“That party pays about a 5% point price,” he said. “In some places that means they lose the race. In some places the race is closer than you expect it. If it’s a five point penalty for Hochul, because of the Andrew Cuomo scandals, then she probably hangs on, but it also means it’s very close race.”