The special House election in western New York on Tuesday may or may not be a referendum on Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, but it certainly has been a circus. The mess began when Rep. Chris Lee (R.), the 26th district’s second-term backbencher, resigned in February after sending shirtless pictures to a potential paramour. Since then, the race to fill the remainder of his term has gone wild. Republican Jane Corwin has garnered thousands of YouTube clicks for all the wrong reasons. Democrat Kathy Hochul has depicted Ryan as a modern-day Mr. Potter. Jack Davis, an ornery ex-Democrat, has mounted a third-party challenge on the “Tea Party” line. The latest Siena poll shows Hochul leading Corwin by four points among likely voters, 42 percent to 38 percent, with Davis pulling a 12-percent slice. GOP strategists tell National Review Online that internal polling predicts a nail-biter. As voters head to the polls in the suburbs of Rochester and Buffalo, a myriad of factors could shake up this bare-knuckles brawl. Here are five things to watch. Red District, Red China Davis, a wealthy industrialist who rails against U.S. trade policy, has garnered sizable support for a third-party candidate. Even though the district is ruby-red — Republicans hold a 27,000-voter registration edge — Davis has bounced to 20 percent in numerous polls within the last month. That bloc has faded as Corwin has spent millions to peg the former Democrat as a Trojan-horse candidate, but in a region that has been devastated by the recession, now dotted with shuttered factories, Davis’s message connects. Former congressman Tom Reynolds, who last defeated Davis in 2006, when the 78-year-old entrepreneur ran as an anti-Bush Democrat, hopes that Corwin’s last-minute punch leaves bruises, and quiets the chorus of anti-trade fears. “[Davis] has a very protectionist viewpoint that resonates in parts of the district, in the blue-collar industrial areas around the Niagara frontier,” Reynolds says. “On trade and NAFTA, as a free-trade candidate, I always had my challenges in making sure that I could get out my exact position and not be branded by him.” As Davis has poured his fortune into the contest, Corwin has also dipped into her pockets, spending over $2 million. More importantly, perhaps, she has spoken out against Chinese trade practices on the stump. In a three-way race, winning back disgruntled blue-collar conservatives who flocked to Davis early on will be crucial. Video Games Like a perspiring big-dollar producer at Cannes, Corwin has spent the final days of the campaign explaining away a sloppy film — in this case, a YouTube video that has brought ridicule upon Michael Mallia, Corwin’s chief of staff in the state assembly, for taunting a rival candidate with a video camera. In a 15-second clip, Davis is approaching his car when Mallia rushes toward him and asks why he is ducking a debate. Davis reaches toward the lens in response and says, “You want to [get] punched out?” Mallia then flails and yelps as the septuagenarian growls. Since the video was uploaded to YouTube, it has received over 80,000 views and dogged Corwin on the trail. The local news stations have reported on the incident as a major story, Watergate-type stuff, and the question of Corwin’s culpability has been an issue in debates. “As far as I am concerned, the video speaks for itself,” Corwin said at her final television fisticuffs with Hochul. “It’s up to the people to decide.” Michael Caputo, a former adviser to Carl Paladino, the Buffalo Republican and 2006 gubernatorial nominee, says that Corwin’s decision to not fire Mallia, or take responsibility for her campaign’s guerrilla-video tactics, could backfire. Conservatives, he says, find the situation unseemly, especially for a state legislator associated with the district’s GOP gentry. Scaring Granny The Ryan budget and its discontents have been the story of this race, at least at the national level. Beltway Republicans fear that if Corwin falls, the Ryan plan will be tarred by Democrats as political poison. Democrats, salivating over a possible pickup in a GOP district, will be jubilant if Hochul flips the seat, and in a bragging mood if she comes close. Hochul, the Erie County clerk, has surged thanks to her relentless criticism of Ryan’s Medicare reforms, which she warns will “end Medicare as we know it.” Things have gotten nasty: One union mailer in support of Hochul pastes Corwin’s face alongside a burning Medicare card. As the clock ticks, it has become clear that this strategy is potent. The Siena poll shows 21 percent of respondents listing Medicare as their number-one issue, and of those voters, 74 percent are firmly behind Hochul. She has also been able to draw swaths of independents into her camp. For Corwin, this is worrisome, since Siena’s numbers show on-the-fence voters fleeing Davis for Hochul, not for the Republican. Corwin, who spent millions on ads against Davis, now finds him stumbling but Hochul peaking in the last lap. To right her ship this past week, Corwin has clumsily attempted to tag Hochul as an opponent of Medicare on the airwaves, noting that Hochul says that in terms of fiscal reform, “everything should be on the table.” The race has depressingly become a Medicare hug-a-thon, with potshots from both sides dominating. “This campaign has too many complicating factors for it to fairly be considered a referendum on Ryan, but inevitably that is how many will interpret the election,” observes University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato. “Even if Corwin wins in the end, critics will say it would never have been close, save for Ryan’s Medicare provisions in his budget plan. Actually it would never have been close without a rich independent posing as a tea-party candidate.”

The Big O Hochul is a happy barnacle upon President Obama’s bump up in the polls. Following the killing of Osama bin Laden, Siena’s latest poll has the president’s approval in the district surging to 48 percent. In a conservative district, that is no small feat. Hochul has spent most of her campaign focused on Medicare, but when she greets voters, she brings up cutting foreign aid to Pakistan, which enables her to remind voters about the bin Laden operation. As Obama crests, Hochul, unlike so many Democrats last fall, finds herself championing her association with aspects of the president’s agenda. Obama is by no means beloved, but he is gaining. So it is no surprise that Hochul rarely makes a peep about Obamacare, but coasts on the president’s bin Laden coattails and spends the rest of the time whipping Ryan. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) is another big-name pol with a strong base of support in NY-26 — Siena shows him with 72 percent favorability. Late last week, to throw some weight, the governor cut an Internet ad for Hochul and formally endorsed her. He also dispatched his lieutenant governor, a former Rochester mayor, to the district. Neither the president nor Cuomo has traveled to the region, nor will they in the final hours. Still, with a Democratic president and governor riding high, Hochul can expect to benefit. Weekend Warriors House Speaker John Boehner scurried to NY-26 earlier this month to pump up Corwin as her lead began to dwindle. Over the past weekend, Boehner’s political team and numerous GOP staffers arrived as reinforcements. “There was a growing worry that Corwin’s campaign was not ready for this,” says one state GOP source. “There was a concern that here we had a great candidate, who is telegenic and articulate, yet her campaign was being directed by a handful of young and undisciplined amateurs.” So the adults stepped in. In the last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee has tossed thousands toward the effort, with at least $400,000 being spent on last-minute television ads. So have the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, a conservative group with ties to GOP strategist Karl Rove. House Republicans, sensing trouble, have also contributed nearly $50,000 from their own campaign funds. But the biggest sign of triage has been the waves of GOP troops from Capitol Hill, a merry band of weekend warriors who have trekked to western New York. Whether their door-knocking, phone banks, and sign-waving can salvage Corwin’s chances is an open question. “Despite Hochul’s current lead, apparent momentum, and strong favorability ratings, this race is not over yet,” says Don Levy, director of the Siena poll. “Needless to say: turnout, turnout, and turnout.” Indeed, in an off-year election, getting the base to the polls is important; in a bizarre three-way race, it is imperative. Corwin has a solid record, to be sure, but as a nominee tapped by the party brass, she is no tea-party darling, and that potential enthusiasm gap among conservatives is making Republicans nervous. There are some things robo-calls can’t solve. — Robert Costa is a political reporter for National Review.