NY-22: On Monday, former GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney accidentally announced that she would seek a rematch with freshman Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi, a move that came one day before she intentionally launched her comeback bid for New York’s 22nd District. The New York Daily News reports that Tenney was trying to solicit feedback from her advisors about her launch video, but instead of sharing an encrypted file, she posted it publicly to Vimeo.
Unfortunately for Tenney, her botched campaign launch is hardly her most embarrassing moment in politics. Last year, she lost her bid for a second term 51-49 in an upstate New York district that had backed Donald Trump by a wide 55-39 margin, making it the Trumpiest seat that a House Republican managed to lose in 2018.
In fact, of the 235 Democratic-held House seats in the nation, the only Trumpier one is Minnesota's 7th, which has been represented by Rep. Collin Peterson for decades. Republican gubernatorial nominee Marc Molinaro also carried New York's 22nd by a wide 56-36 margin as Tenney was losing, so she managed to alienate quite a few conservative voters on her way out the door.
Indeed, Tenney had a knack for attracting plenty of bad headlines for herself during the campaign. Tenney notably mused that “so many” mass shooters “end up being Democrats; declared that the "deep state" was responsible for the scandal over Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson's $31,000 dining room set; said that members of Congress who didn't applaud Trump during his State of the Union address were "un-American;" and argued that former White House official Rob Porter didn't commit a "crime of character" for beating his wife.
Tenney’s biggest mistake, though, was likely her decision to hurl hoary anti-Italian slurs at Brindisi in 2017 by saying his father had represented "some of the worst criminals in our community" who were members of "organized crime"—in other words, mafia figures.
None of this had anything to do with her actual opponent—especially since the elder Brindisi ceased doing criminal defense in 1983—and it was also a terrible strategy in a seat where one in seven residents are of Italian descent, one of the higher rates in the country. Indeed, a former president of the local Sons of Italy declared, "Anytime your name ends in a vowel people feel it's fair to take the mafia shot at you. It's really horrible.”
Rather than stop, though, Tenney doubled down on line of attack the following year. Tenney drew condemnation from Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente, a fellow Republican who called Tenney a "national embarrassment" months before, as well as GOP state Sen. Joseph Griffo.
Tenney could very well end up beating Brindisi in this red seat, but if she campaigns this time like she did in 2018, she could struggle again. First, though, Tenney will need to get through a primary against Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell, who kicked off his bid in early July.