The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

It's been a slow couple of months in the 29th. The big news is that the 29th will be no more after the next redistricting - New York is losing two seats in the House.

In other news, Sean Carroll tells me that he'll have an extensive interview with Tom Reed and his wife, about Reed's health, on tonight's 5 and 6 o'clock newscasts on Rochester's 13-WHAM.

Happy New Year to all of you.

The Corning Leader reports that Tom Reed will be discharged from the hospital and sworn in today.

Congressman-elect Tom Reed was hospitalized last night for blood clotting in his lungs. He's expected to be released in a couple of days.

Update: Sean Carroll confirms that it's a Pulmonary Embolism (PE) probably caused by a clot thrown from his leg. This is a common malady for people who have been sitting on planes or in cars for long periods of time. It does strike young people. For example, David Bloom, a NBC News reporter, died of a PE at age 39 earlier this decade.

If tomorrow is the first time you've voted since the last election, you'll be voting for the first time on paper ballots. Here's a video about the new voting system. I used it in the primary and it's easy - you simply fill in a bubble next to the candidate's name with a marker.

Here's a gadget from Google that helps you find your polling place:

Chris Rackl from the Zeller campaign sends a correction to the previous post about voting twice. Apparently, the Leader story wasn't quite right about the columns on which the 29th contest will occur. Here's the scoop:

In Chemung, Monroe and Schuyler Counties, the contests will be in Columns 9 & 10
In Ontario, Steuben, and Yates Counties, the contests will be in Columns 10 & 11
In Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties, the contests will be in Columns 14 & 15

Here's the response to the robo-call story from Tim Kolpien of the Reed campaign:

This allegation is ridiculous - We are not even doing any robo calls – not a single one. Not even for Tom. Certainly not for Matt.

The one thing that everyone has to remember is that you need to vote twice in tomorrow's election.

One vote is for the special election to serve out the rest of Eric Massa's term. The other is for the general election to serve the next two years in Congress.

Update: Reader Elmer sends this morning's Corning Leader front page [pdf], which makes this really, really clear.

The Zeller campaign sent over a supporter's scan [pdf] of the Finger Lakes Times endorsement of Zeller.

The Corning Leader endorsed Tom Reed today [pdf]. Here's the Leader's Zeller [pdf] and Reed [pdf] one-page candidate issue summaries. Thanks to Elmer for the documents.

The Zeller campaign has put out a press release accusing the Reed campaign of making back-to-back "Vote Zeller" robocalls to annoy Zeller supporters.

I don't know whether this is true, but if it is, I'd be surprised. I'm also surprised that Reed is running any negative ads. (The ads aren't negative against Zeller, but they do attack Democrats.)

As the prohibitive favorite, Reed should be completely positive.

The Zeller press release is included after the break.