In a little over two weeks, Sean Eldridge will be forced to concede defeat in the NY-19 congressional race. In an ideal world, Republican incumbent Chris Gibson will win reelection by at least 30 points.
Eldridge is the worst candidate of the 2014 cycle, and represents everything that self-respecting Americans hate about politicians. He is an entitled carpetbagger, whose rich husband has purchased multiple mansions in neighboring districts in an effort to fulfill his political ambitions. (Eldridge is married to New Republic editor-in-chief Chris Hughes, who made millions after he was randomly assigned to be Mark Zuckerberg’s roommate at Harvard.)
Eldridge, who is only 28 years old and has a philosophy major from Brown, has positioned himself as someone who will stand up to "special interests." Meanwhile, he has raised money from the likes of George Soros, Tom Steyer, and a host of Goldman Sachs executives and Silicon Valley tycoons. He is by far the largest donor to his own campaign. And despite his efforts to buy votes with his husband’s money by establishing a modern day feudal system in his district, Eldridge won’t even commit to stay in that district after he loses, because he quite obviously is going to move to another district and run for national office again.
Eldridge is currently trying to backtrack on an earlier pledge he made to "[limit] his self-funding to a dollar-for-dollar match of his other donations," as reported in the Poughkeepsie Journal. Recent campaign records show that of the $875,031 Eldridge raised this quarter, $500,000 came from Sean Eldridge, whose campaign denies that the candidate ever pledged to limit his contributions. But really, what difference, at this point, does it make? He’s going to lose, and it will be a great victory for America.