Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Former Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava endorsed the Democratic contender for a vacant New York congressional seat over a Conservative backed by Republican leaders one day after she withdrew from the race.

Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman, yesterday announced she is supporting Democrat Bill Owens in his race against Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, in a Nov. 3 special election in New York’s traditionally Republican 23rd congressional district.

Scozzafava stepped aside Oct. 31 after her lead in polls evaporated and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a Republican, endorsed Hoffman. Scozzafava said she was “outspent on both sides.” Republicans have just two other seats in New York’s 29- member House delegation.

“The good news for conservatives is not to have the Republican in the race; the danger was the anti-Democratic vote was split,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Poughkeepsie, New York-based Marist College Polling Institute, in an interview yesterday.

Miringoff, who hasn’t done polling on the contest, added: “With the endorsement, it becomes a little more confusing in terms of where voters are going to go.”

Scozzafava was running third in the contest, with the race between her opponents “too close to call,” according to a Siena College poll published Oct. 31. The poll of 704 likely voters, taken Oct. 27-29, showed Owens, an attorney, with 36 percent of the vote and Hoffman with 35 percent.

Campaigning With Owens

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced Scozzafava’s endorsement of Owens on its Web site. She didn’t return a message left at her campaign office, and her home voice mailbox was full. She appeared yesterday at a campaign event with Owens in Canton, New York, according to Jon Boughtin, an Owens spokesman.

Political parties, unions and interest groups have spent more than $2.5 million on the special election to fill the seat vacated by Republican John McHugh, who stepped down to accept President Barack Obama’s appointment as secretary of the Army.

New York’s 23rd district stretches from areas north and east of Syracuse and northwest of Albany through the Adirondack Mountains to the Canadian border.

Conservatives including Palin, the Republican Party’s 2008 vice presidential candidate, rallied around Hoffman, a Lake Placid businessman, instead of Scozzafava, who supports abortion rights and was endorsed by the state teachers’ union.

Palin portrayed Hoffman as the contest’s true conservative, as did former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee.

House Leaders

House Republican leaders embraced Hoffman after Scozzafava suspended her campaign. Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, and Texas Representative Pete Sessions, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement that they “look forward to welcoming Doug Hoffman into the House Republican Conference.”

Boehner and Cantor said in a separate statement they would support Hoffman to fill the next available vacancy on the House Armed Services Committee.

Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the Washington-based Rothenberg Political Report, said in an interview that until Scozzafava suspended her campaign, there were “basically two Republicans in this race.”

“This significantly enhances the Republicans’ chances of holding the seat, but now with Hoffman,” Rothenberg said. “While everything I’ve seen leads me to believe Hoffman has the edge, I don’t think it’s a slam dunk.”

Closer to Democrats

Scozzafava was closer to Democrats than Republicans on some issues, he said. Republican leaders in New York erred in selecting her to run for the seat because she wasn’t broadly acceptable to “the base” of Republican voters, said Rothenberg.

White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said yesterday, “It’s rather telling when the Republican Party forces out a moderate Republican.” Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” she said the party is “becoming more and more extreme and more and more marginalized.”

David Axelrod, another White House adviser, said yesterday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Scozzafava withdrew “because of the strong third-party movement behind a very right-wing conservative.”

“It sends a clear message to moderates within that party that there’s no room at the inn for them,” Axelrod said.

Boehner, the Republican leader, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program that the party embraces moderates.

“We accept moderates in our party and we want moderates in our party,” he said. “We need a broad group of people in our party.”

Steele Endorsement

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele endorsed Hoffman and said the party will offer him financial backing. Hoffman “shares Republican principles and will serve the interests of his constituents in Congress,” Steele said in a statement.

At the start of October, the Siena poll showed Scozzafava leading with 35 percent of the vote. Her support dropped to 20 percent in the latest poll.

“Pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support,” Scozzafava said in a statement on Oct. 31. She said that her name would remain on the ballot Nov. 3, “but victory is unlikely.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and 1199SEIU, a health-care workers’ affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, spent a combined $1.1 million in support of Owens’s candidacy through Oct. 27, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The National Republican Congressional Committee spent almost $900,000 to help Scozzafava. An anti-tax advocacy group, the Washington-based Club for Growth, spent about $340,000 supporting Hoffman.

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Blum in Washington at jblum4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 2, 2009 00:00 EST