GOP primary for U.S. Senate still a toss-up

ALBANY -- With little more than a month to go, the three-way battle for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate is a toss-up and will hinge on whose campaign can get committed voters to the polls June 26, analysts said.

The winner takes on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

Notably, Republican insiders said, Long Island's George Maragos is the one candidate who isn't relying significantly on veteran political professionals. While that could hurt his get-out-the-vote operation, Maragos said he doesn't need them.

"I've hired them and fired them because they haven't worked out," Maragos said of political professionals. "I've found that a lot of these political consultants over-promise and under-deliver, and I think that's why the Republican Party hasn't been successful in recent years."

Maragos said he's sticking with a close circle of campaigners who helped him score an upset victory in 2009 to become Nassau County comptroller. "They are loyal. They are comfortable with me," he said. "I think they are the best -- look at the results."

Analysts said the race -- which also includes Rep. Robert Turner (R-Rockaway Point) and Manhattan attorney Wendy Long -- is impossible to handicap at this point, largely because not even Republican voters know the candidates.

Then, there's recent history: the last three Republican primaries ended in upsets.

"What you really need in a primary is a turnout operation," said Michael Dawidziak, a Long Island-based Republican consultant who isn't involved in this contest. "As a consultant who has run an awful lot of primaries, I can tell you the stuff that wins primaries is the stuff you don't see. It's all under the radar. It's a grassroots identification operation."

Turner became a Republican darling after he scored an upset in the special election to replace disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner in a heavily Democratic Queens-Brooklyn district. He has an electoral base and the highest profile of any of the Republican hopefuls.

Long has the backing of more GOP chairmen than her opponents and the endorsement of the state Conservative Party. She has a campaign team filled with officials from former Gov. George Pataki's administration who have worked in numerous statewide elections.

Polls don't give many clues about the race.

In the most recent Siena College survey, Turner garnered the support of 15 percent of enrolled Republicans, Long 12 percent and Maragos 6. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 6.8 percentage points, meaning each candidate's support could vary by that much.

But the most significant number was 67 percent -- the proportion of Republican voters who said they didn't know enough about any candidate to declare a favorite.

"It tells you that, right now, each candidate has an equal chance," said Siena College pollster Steve Greenberg. "You are talking about three candidates who are largely unknown to the general electorate as well as Republicans. I would not place any one of them as the front-runner."

Long won the most support at the GOP state convention in Rochester, garnering 47 percent of the delegates' vote. Maragos received 27 percent, while Turner captured 25 percent despite announcing his candidacy just days before the event.

Noteworthy, perhaps, is the fact that in all three statewide Republican primaries in 2010 -- for governor and in two U.S. Senate races -- the candidate who carried the convention lost the primary -- most notably, Long Island's Rick Lazio, who was clobbered by Carl Paladino in the gubernatorial contest.

The key to an upset is to target likely voters, Greenberg said.

"You have to identify who you think is going to support you," he said, "and then make sure they get out to vote."