Not all Orthodox Jews have voted Republican. In my neighborhood, the Orthodox election districts voted 65% to 88% for Obama.

NY-26 should not have been a close election as it is a district that was gerrymandered to elect a Republican. It is an R+6 district, meaning it was 6% more Republican than the national average in 2008 — voting for John McCain. But Corwin drank the Republican Kool Aid and supported Paul Ryan’s efforts to end Medicare as we know it. If the Republicans don’t back down on this the damage to the party in the 2012 House elections will be tremendous.

Donovan and DioGuardi were respectable candidates, not right wing crazies (as was State Comptroller candidate Wilson, arguably more qualified than the Democrat who won). Republican primary voters saddled them with gubernatorial candidate Paladino who wanted to bring concentration camps to New York State. No wonder they couldn’t get out from under the deluge. Unfortunately, Republican primary voters haven’t learned the lesson.

The 18-35 demographic is nationally the strongest Democratic demographic. Obama won it in a landslide. That is very bad news for Republicans in the long run.

Finally, there just aren’t many states with enough Orthodox Jewish voters to matter much in a statewide election. The majority of Orthodox Jews in America live in New York State, which these days is reliably Democratic in national elections as the upstate Republican areas have fewer voters than a generation ago while New York City continues to grow. It is also bad news for the Republican party that both John McCain and Carl Paladino did best in the parts of the US that are declining in population.

It is definitely winnable by a Republican, especially after this scandal.