The race in New York’s 23rd Congressional District highlights the concerns many Republican voters have about their party leaders.

At a time when 73% of Republicans believe their party's representatives in Congress have lost touch with the GOP base, 11 county leaders in upstate New York picked a nominee for Congress who supported the Democratic president’s stimulus package, his health care reform plan and “card check” legislation designed to make union organizing easier. All three items are overwhelmingly opposed by Republican voters - and even by Republicans in Congress.

The decision by county GOP leaders to nominate such a candidate seemed almost designed to provoke the party’s core voters, and it did.

A Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, entered the fray and picked up endorsements from many leading national Republicans. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, urged voters to stick with the party’s official nominee. He said a decision by local party leaders was good enough for him, but most Republican voters don’t have such confidence in the party leadership.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

This past weekend, the official Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the race in the face of falling poll numbers and lackluster fund-raising. Then she endorsed the Democrat.

As a result, the New York 23rd Congressional District race will end up being between a Conservative Party candidate and a Democrat. In many ways, that pairing reflects the reality of national match-ups more than the typical partisan competition. There are more conservatives than Democrats in America, and there are more Democrats than Republicans.

One reason for this is that while Republican voters overwhelmingly consider themselves conservative, only 56% of conservative voters consider themselves to be Republicans. In other words, nearly half of all conservatives nationwide reject the Republican Party label.

This means that Republicans looking to broaden their party’s outreach cannot ignore the need to attract a large number of conservative voters along with some political moderates. Of all the non-Republicans in the nation, 31% consider themselves at least somewhat conservative while 37% say they’re political moderates.

The sweet spot for Republicans are core issues that unify conservatives while dividing more moderate voters. One such issue is health care where conservatives are united in their opposition to the plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, and 37% of moderates are opposed, too.

Looked at from that perspective, nominating a GOP candidate who supports the president’s health care plan is likely to drive away more voters than it attracts. The same logic applies to the stimulus package, card check and other such proposals. That’s just what happened in NY-23. Nationwide, 42% currently support the health care plan working its way through Congress.

It should be noted that Democratic Party dynamics are entirely different.

While a plurality (44%) of Democrats are politically liberal, nearly as many (35%) are moderate. So Democrats must make compromises within their party before reaching out. Also, the pool of available non-Democrats is very heavily on the moderate side.

Just nine percent (9%) of non-Democrats are even somewhat liberal while 29% are politically moderate. These non-Democratic political moderates are absolutely essential to Democratic candidates. That’s why Democrats are eager to suggest that situations such as NY-23 indicate a GOP rejection of moderates in favor of extremists.

Interestingly, while Republican voters say their congressional representatives are out of touch, a plurality (47%) of Democratic voters view their members of Congress as roughly in the same place they are ideologically. Just 27% say the average Democratic member of Congress is more liberal than the average Democrat, while 19% think the average Democrat in Congress is more conservative.

Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.