Democrat Blake Gendebien is in a dead heat with Republican Anthony Constantino in a deep-red upstate New York congressional district, intern
Know anybody in NY-21? It's a sprawling district in Upstate New York which includes the Adirondacks and straddles the Canadian border.
It's currently represented by by loyal MAGA follower Elise Stefanik. Though she may be a tad less loyal these days since Trump abruptly decided to withdraw her nomination for UN ambassador last year. She has decided not to seek another term in the US House.
This week, GOP voters in NY-21 nominated batshit crazy Anthony Constantino to run for Stefanik's seat. In so doing, they may have turned a safe Republican seat into a toss-up seat.
A new internal poll shows a Democratic House candidate is in a dead heat with his Republican challenger in an upstate New York district President Donald Trump won by 20 points in 2024. The poll, commissioned by Democratic candidate Blake Gendebien’s campaign and conducted by the left-leaning group Impact Research, found Gendebien trailing Republican Anthony Constantino by just one percentage point, 45-44, with 11 percent of voters undecided. [ ... ] Constantino, the CEO of a sticker company who’s self-funding his campaign with $10 million, earned Trump’s endorsement in April, a blow that proved fatal for (Robert) Smullen’s primary campaign. Constantino is an eccentric and passionate supporter of the president and recently recorded an adulatory rap album titled “Thank You President Trump.”
The cautionary note is that it is an internal Democratic poll. Regardless, it's doubtful anybody expected such a close result.
To make matters interesting, the NY state legislator who lost to Constantino in the GOP primary, Robert Smullen, could choose to run in November under the banner of the New York Conservative Party. This would split the Republican vote in November though Smullen may get a small number of votes which might otherwise go to Democrat Blake Gendebien in a Gendebien-Constantino match-up.
Unexpectedly, NY-21 may become one of the more interesting US House races this year.
