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New York GOP has sights set on winning four key Congressional contests

NYS Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment

Republican party leaders are bullish when it comes to New York state's congressional elections this November.

Ed Cox, head of the state's Republican Party, expects this November’s mid-term elections will hold true to history, when gains are traditionally made by the party that’s not in power in the White House.
 
"We could pick up four, maybe five seats in addition to the six we have," Cox said. "The six that we picked up in 2010 was a record itself, we picked up more than any other state in the United States. Adding another four would be very nice, and I think we could do that.”

Cox believes the GOP has a chance to pick up those four seats in the House of Representatives in this off-year election, including the 21st Congressional District, which stretches across the North Country and has been left open by the retirement of Democrat Bill Owens.

“We can win in the North Country, where Bill Owens - he was a great candidate - he would have been hard to beat," Cox said. "But he saw the handwriting on the wall and this wave. He didn’t want to be engulfed in this wave.”

Other House seats Cox believes are winnable include the first district on the eastern end of Long Island; the 19th, which includes Poughkeepsie and will be a rematch of a close 2012 race; and the 24th, centered in Syracuse and currently held by Democrat Dan Maffei who lost to a Republican in the 2010 mid-term elections.

New York has 27 seats in the House of Representatives, with six of them in Republican hands.

Ellen produces news reports and features related to events that occur in the greater Syracuse area and throughout Onondaga County. Her reports are heard regularly in regional updates in Morning Edition and All Things Considered.