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People are just arriving, getting their drinks, settling in for the evening, it’s pretty mellow, a little bit more mellow than I would’ve expected given the really good news that the Doheny campaign got late last week, when a Siena poll found that this race was pretty much a dead heat with Owens up one percent. I was talking with campaign spokesman Jude Seymour and he said that, you know, that poll really dispelled the overhang of a previous poll that had Owens up 13. It really gave them validation and, you know, giving people a new narrative and sort of building excitement towards Doheny’s candidacy.

So they have high hopes for tonight?

Yeah. People are excited. Seymour—Jude Seymour—said, you know, 'we believed all along' that they could win, they feel like that there’s a high turnout all across the 21st District, and given that the voter enrollment edges for Republicans, they feel that that is good news and that turnout is a good thing, and, you know, they think they have a good shot tonight.

Hear Martha Foley's conversation with Brian Mann at Bill Owens Headquarters.