As the field of Democratic candidates who are interested in challenging Elise Stefanik (R) continues to grow and swell in New York’s 21st Congressional District, there is a growing concern amongst party officials and activists that I speak with about the total lack of interest in state legislative races throughout our region this cycle. At the present moment, there is not a single Democratic challenger that has filed to run against any of the sitting Republican State Senators or Republican State Assemblymembers in the North Country. As one frustrated Democratic Party official from Warren County said to me, “we need Democratic candidates to run for the state legislature. What we really don’t need right now is even more challengers running against Elise Stefanik.” That person also stated to me that they hoped that some of the Democrats in the 21st District that have no viable chance of prevailing in the primary would ultimately run for the State Senate or Assembly.
What that person said makes perfect logical sense. The reality is that each Democratic candidate in the 21st Congressional race has only a 1 in 8 (13%) chance of prevailing in the primary and then about a 30%-35% chance of defeating Stefanik in November. Mathematically and statistically, the odds for each candidate is just daunting; perhaps less than 5%. Add that to the fact that as long there is such a crowded field of candidates, the DCCC and big-time donors have little incentive to invest in this race because it’s anybody’s guess as to who the final candidate will be. The more and more candidates, the more and more Elise Stefanik benefits. And who really wants to see do-nothing GOP lawmakers like Betty Little, Dan Stec and Pattie Ritchie run another time with no opposition, especially in the current toxic environment for the Republican Party?
By spending so much time focusing on the 21st Congressional race, we could be missing our big opportunity to make significant gains on the state legislative level north of Albany this year. Unfortunately, almost all of the Democratic candidates in the 21st Congressional race are never going to get the change to face off against Elise Stefanik, but many of them could become very viable candidates for the legislature and provide a fresh voice and a desperately needed alternative to long-time Republican political hacks that have very little to show for all of the many years (or decades) that they’ve occupied their offices.
And the trend lines actually are quite good for Democrats on this level. In 2014, Carrie Woerner won the very ancestrally Republican 113th State Assembly District, becoming the first Democrat to represent Washington County and the Saratoga Springs area in the Assembly in over a century; until Woerner’s victory, the southeastern portion of her district was actually more recently represented by a Whig than a Democrat. In 2016, Billy Jones captured the 115th District in Clinton, Frankin and eastern St. Lawrence Counties and became the first Democrat to represent his district in almost four decades. And Woerner and Jones’s wins weren’t flukes either; there a sign that the Democratic realignment of Northern New England politics (Vermont, New Hampshire) that started in the 1980s may now be moving westward across the state line into adjacent eastern portions of Upstate New York. Perhaps we’ll eventually be able to put Dan Stec’s district into play as well.
Could Katie Wilson of Essex County apply her grassroots activism to a potential run against Betty Little or Dan Stec? The 33 year-old Wilson could perhaps contrast her youth and energy and provide fresh ideas against a tired and elderly 77 year-old Betty Little that hasn’t done that much in recent years or she could also run against do-nothing Dan Stec in the Assembly. Tedra Cobb of St. Lawrence County, who I do believe is congressional material and one of the best candidates, might make a good challenger against Pattie Ritchie if she can’t prevail in the primary. Ritchie is another classic Republican hack in the State Senate that really doesn’t do too much. Patrick Nelson of Saratoga County and Don Boyajian of Washington County both live in the 43rd State Senate District currently occupied by Tea Party Republican Kathy Marchione. Perhaps Nelson could use his charisma or Boyajian could use his big campaign warchest and connections to take on the right-wing Marchione, who has never been the best fit for a relatively moderate suburban/exurban district outside of Albany, which narrowly favored Obama in 2008 and 2012 and where Trump received less than 50% of the vote in 2016.
I could go on and on, but there’s a lot for Democrats in our region to think about…
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