ALBANY - In December, Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith just shrugged when asked if a Democrat had any chance of winning the upstate office to be vacated by Republican Sen. James Wright, who held the seat for 15 years.

It would be a tough one at best, the Queens Democrat said then, unsure even if Democrats would run a candidate.

Smith struck a different tone on Wednesday, a day after Democrat Darrel Aubertine upset Republican Will Barclay to narrowly win the 48th district seat near Watertown held by Republicans for at least 120 years.

He said the win will help propel Democrats to take the majority in November.

“Today's victory for us in a district that is the largest Republican district in the state of New York gives us pause to be a bit confident - but not over confident,” Smith said. “Because you never know in this game.”

What is known is that Republicans, who have controlled the Senate since the end of World War II except in 1965, are in more serious trouble than thought before Tuesday's race. When Aubertine takes office in coming days, Republicans will have a one-seat majority in the 62-seat house.

But under the Senate's rules, that still leaves most of the power with Republicans.

“This conference is solidly behind me going forward to win this war,” said Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, an upstate Republican and Korean War veteran. “This was a phenomena.”

Bruno blamed Smith and his ally, Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, for leaking false stories of dissension in the Republican Senate and weakness in several seats. In yet another martial reference, Bruno called the Democrats the biggest propaganda machine since World War II.

Bruno, bold and unrepentant Wednesday before the cameras, stood shoulder to shoulder with long rumored rivals for the lucrative and powerful majority leader's job - Sens. Dean Skelos of Long Island and Thomas Libous of Broome County. They talked of holding onto the last bastion in state government not led by New York City Democrats, for the good of the people who, nonetheless, have been voting away the GOP's power for years.

The Republicans were united, brothers in arms, sort of like at the Alamo.

“There is no doubt about it,” said political science Professor Robert McClure of Syracuse University's Maxwell School who watched the 48th race play out in the local media. “The data about that is clear. The closer you get to a bare majority, the greater - the stronger - party discipline is. And what you're going to see is there is no wiggle room on either side for a senator to go his or her own way.”

He said the race itself - at $2 million the second most expensive in state Senate history - was more like a congressional race. Professional political operatives from Albany and New York City descended on the rural area and hit television and other media hard, often with negative ads, including commercials during the Super Bowl.

What it likely came down to was organization, and the Democrats and their allied Working Families Party showed they had some edge in getting out the local vote. But the win, even in a district with officially 78,000 enrolled Republicans to 47,000 Democrats, also is further evidence of the rising Democratic tide in New York.

“This ain't your father's Republican area any more,” McClure said.

Other keys: Democrats used a top political operative, Ryan Toohey, an upstater who had been Spitzer's campaign manager for governor in 2006. In addition, the Democrats are flush with cash, while the Republican party is rebuilding and didn't have the usual resource advantage of the party defending its seat, said Professor Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

On Wednesday, Smith sought to take the high road, saying the Senate should be occupied with crafting a state budget for hard fiscal times. Smith has called for a hiring freeze and true cuts in spending rather than just reduced growth to combat a $4.8 billion deficit and a possible recession.

“It's not war for us,” Smith said.

The high road may be his only real option for Smith in Albany anyway, where unlike in most states the majorities rule absolutely.

Majorities - including the Democrats running the Assembly - use their rules to block the minority parties and decide what bills will get to a floor debate, what bills will pass, and even what day a bill will get voted on. That could be critical, because Bruno's base of Republicans in their 70s - some, as the old joke goes, who are a bad cold away from vacating their seats - can delay important votes until all their members are present and able to vote as a bloc.

So in Albany, if everyone shows up and no Republican takes a rare flip to the Democratic party, legislation and policy decisions will likely run the same in the Senate whether the GOP has its one-seat edge or a a 20-seat edge.

But the real Albany power, which operates behind the scenes and runs more on money than votes, has taken notice.

One of Albany's most powerful lobbyists, the Service Employees International Union Local 1199, a longtime Bruno supporter, quietly funded the Democrat-aligned Working Families Party that played a big role in the Democratic win in the special election. After The New York Times reported the spending, and a lack of effort for the Republicans who long defended the union, SEIU 1199 announced a similar donation to Bruno's forces.

“It's quite an extraordinary moment,” said Benjamin, who called the 48th district a “rock-bed Republican district designed by Republicans.”

“The upstate areas have begun to believe that Democrats may be paying attention to them, and that really started with Hillary Rodham Clinton, not Spitzer,” Benjamin said. “This will make the Republicans even more focused on survival. On balance, I think it will make it harder to get things done.”