Peter King is listed on the DCCC 2008 target list. Although he won by a big margin (+12%) in 2006, he spent much of his war chest and may be vulnerable. So what has the DCCC done since they released their list in March to unseat the last remaining GOP congressman on Long Island?
Apparently, nothing. As of today no candidate has announced against King. Dave Mejias who ran against King in 2006 is running for the NY State Senate so will not be challenging King. Mejias did not run a very good campaign in 2006, concentrating too much on being anti-King and not giving enough pro-Mejias information to the voters, but he did manage to get King to spend quite a bit of the money he had been stockpiling. Prior to the 2006 election, King started the campaign with about $1.4 million available for his re-election. He spent close to $2 million. Today he has about $800,000 on hand. We can assume that without a serious challenger, King will be able to donate money to other congressional contests and save for 2010.
King should be vulnerable. The district is +2 Democratic and King has been a huge Bush supporter. Mejias was able to generate a lot of fund raising for his campaign and that kind of fund raising should be available to a good candidate. But the DCCC has not be able to get anyone to announce against King. At this late date, sufficient fund raising to be competitive will be very difficult. It's hard to believe that in New York a contest for a Congressional district could be ignored. But that is what has happened in NY-03. Prepare to endure Peter King's face on CNN and FoxNews for another two years.