The New York State Conservative Party has named its top choices for the Republican nominee in the upcoming special election in the 21st Congressional District.
Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican, is scheduled for a confirmation vote on her nomination as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations early next month. When confirmed, she will resign her seat and Governor Kathy Hochul will call the special election.
The candidates will be chosen by county party leaders. Republicans have yet to finalize their hopeful.
The Conservative Party of New York State says current state Senator Dan Stec is their top choice to run in the congressional race. The party would also accept state Assemblyman Chris Tague or former two-time House candidate Liz Joy.
Conservative Chair Jerry Kassar says there are several reasons they feel Stec, of the 45th district, is the best candidate.
“First he has a 100 percent Conservative Party legislative rating, multiple times by the way. He currently represents 40 percent of the Congressional seat through his state Senate seat and he’s received a very, very high number of votes as an incumbent, so he’s quite popular. Now Assemblyman Tague has a 100 percent party rating too, so I want to make that clear and he represents a smaller piece. And Liz we’ve endorsed twice before. She is a strong proponent of conservative philosophy. And we believe we’ve provided a good level of recommendations to the GOP in that we’re recommending two incumbent GOP legislators and a former GOP congressional candidate out of this much larger field.”
Stec says he is honored to have the support of the Conservative Party, adding he has had its backing during his past campaigns for Assembly and Senate.
“It’s a relationship over years where they’ve grown comfortable with me. Not to say that I’m the only person that they like. In fact, they made that clear that there’s others that could be acceptable to them. But in a crowded field of some good contenders, and some maybe not so, it’s nice that they’ve selected me as their preferred candidate and communicated that to the world and obviously to the Republican chairs that are going to be looking to make a similar and more official decision once there’s an actual vacancy in about a week.”
The Democratic nominee, farmer Blake Gendebien, shrugs off the Conservative Party’s choices.
“The 15 county Republican chairs have a tough job ahead of them. I have not been paying attention. I’m just waiting until we find out who the actual candidate is. It doesn’t really matter to be because I’m on Team North Country. I know that what North Country residents want are cheap grocery prices, immigration reform, supporting small business and making sure that veterans, seniors, children, families and hard-working people have the health care they need. When I talk to my neighbors, they just want a normal person that’s going to go to work and work in the middle and get things done that that everybody cares about.”
Democrats in Albany earlier considered a move to delay the special election. Current state requires the race to be held within about three months. Gendebien calls the idea political gamesmanship.
“It’s a mistake. The residents in the North Country, we need representation as soon as possible.”
