Within the Margin

The finish line is finally in sight for the Democratic primary in NY-19, after dozens of candidate forums, hours of aired television ads, countless touches via doorknocking, phonebanking and Hustle texts, and the stuffing-full-of-mailers of seemingly every Democratic mailbox across eleven counties. And to my excitement, it’s really not clear who’s going to win tomorrow night. I could make a case for just about any of them pulling it off (and in most cases, deservedly so).

One could certainly imagine it being Pat Ryan. To the extent that there’s a consensus out there on where the race stands, folks tend to see him as one of the two frontrunners. He and his surrogates have argued from the start that his biography – military service, business experience, and local roots – would make him the most formidable Democrat to take on John Faso in the general election. He has grown on the campaign trail, gradually dropping an overly-cautious approach that left him saying nothing of substance and hanging everything upon his bio. In its place: a post-Parkland focus on gun safety, amplified by some striking ads including this masterpiece. In taking some of his cues from Jason Kander (using his veteran bona fides to allow him to prosecute the case for an assault weapons ban with greater authority than those who have never touched a firearm) he has charted a course that very nearly carried Kander to victory in tougher terrain in November 2016.

But that was a general election, and this is still – for one more day – a primary election. For a certain segment of the Democratic party at large, and especially in the activist-heavy Hudson Valley and Catskills, Ryan’s ads and mailers are met with suspicion as a reminder of his fundraising abilities and beltway support. Anecdotally, I know Democrats who have ruled him out for both July and November as a result of an Intercept hit piece that highlighted his onetime openness – as a datamining company’s employee many years ago – to a scheme to aid the Chamber of Commerce in spying on labor activists. In terms of prognosticating the primary, it’s important to remember that a lot of the folks most convinced by anti-DCCC messaging and a questionable Intercept (read: Glenn Greenwald’s outfit) article were never voting for Ryan anyway. But the article did give some folks an excuse to rule Ryan out in a large, closely-contested field.

Antonio Delgado is the other guy people expect to be in or around the top spot. He’s the guy who most lights up a room, with a huge smile and at times soaring oratory. The resume is there – Rhodes scholar, Harvard Law, Akin Gump, son of working-class upstaters. The money is there – Delgado has prided himself from the start on assembling the resources to win. That has included early and substantial field investments; this was never a campaign that was going to struggle with petitioning or identifying voters. He hires good people. His resume goes beyond the impressive credentials mentioned above; the man has worked in hip-hop as an artist and producer. He’s an actual person, not the creation of campaign consultants – but there is most certainly a well-molded candidate and campaign there, which like Ryan turns off a certain segment of the primary electorate. Akin Gump is as politically-connected as they come, so any hedging on policy by Delgado is perceived by some as an indicator of “corporate ties.” (I might argue that it reflects a thoughtful fellow who understands that sloganeering about different health care options is only going to end up disappointing those same corporation-fearing citizens when the time comes to evaluate what actually has 218 votes in Congress. Yelling about single payer versus Medicare-for-all versus some other path to the widest pool of insured people possible sometimes seems like an exercise in virtue-signaling.) It’s hard to dismiss his commitment to health care, though, when one remembers this his very first video was with Andrea Mitchell, the woman to whom John Faso lied through his teeth about protecting during last summer’s health care “reform” efforts.

And then there’s the race thing. It’s hard to convey the disappointment of hearing Democrat after Democrat after Democrat say “well, I just don’t know that a black man can win in that district. They’ll attack him over the hip-hop records!” Yes, it’s the whitest district in the state. It also voted twice for Barack Obama and – maybe sit down for this one – white people listen to hip-hop, too. At the risk of giving people who did indeed also vote for Trump too much credit, I think the world is chock-full of white rural white people who will vote you if they think you’re credible on jobs, farm security, and health care – regardless of what music you prefer.

The better argument against Delgado has always been the lack of in-district roots. He’s originally from upstate, yes, but he’s not from the district. He had been out of NY for a long time before moving to Dutchess County to run for this seat. A recent mailer calling touting Hudson Valley roots was an apt description of his wife (a Woodstock native) but not of him. Democrats get pummeled on the carpetbagging issue in upstate NY, and the best way to deal with that weakness is to own it – and then turn around and offer a contrast between your values and Faso’s, and ask voters which better captures the Hudson and Mohawk valleys, Catskills and Leatherstocking Region. When Delgado does that, he excels…when he tries to fudge his local credentials, he looks foolish.

Brian Flynn is the third candidate with the resources and organization for automatic competitiveness, having put plenty of his own money into the race. He has family roots in the district but offers a blurry picture with respect to how long he himself has been a full-time resident. He has carved out an effective niche as a job creator and policy wonk who starts from a set of coherent policy goals (his Plan for the American Worker) and builds his message from there, rather than checking off progressive boxes the way a lot of candidates in NY-19 and elsewhere seem to do. He also may have an additional and electorally potent niche: he has a quite a bit of anecdotal support in the western part of the district. Counties like Otsego and Schoharie are small and don’t have many registered Democrats – but winning them comfortably while the other candidates are splitting Dutchess and Ulster four or five ways might give Flynn an edge in the final tally. In a race where some of the candidates are notorious for focusing on Dutchess and Ulster, Flynn may prove to have been wise to recognize that as important as those populous, Dem-heavy counties may be, the general election requires a candidate who won’t get wiped out in the redder counties…and the primary might require that, too. None of which is to say Flynn is devoid of support in the Big Two; he has the support of a lot of Dutchess committee members as evidenced by a strong second-place showing in the committee’s March 1 endorsement vote.

Armed with fewer resources but the greatest commitment to seeking support in every corner of the district – and the useful distinction of the guy you’re most likely to run into when you’re out and about, whether at a small diner in Sullivan County or a bar in Kingston – is Gareth Rhodes. Fresh off his 163-town tour of the district, Rhodes represents those in the party who believe part of winning – indeed, part of past victories – is showing up. Not everyone in the Democratic Party is resigned to getting to 218 seats by running the table in the 218 most-metropolitan and/or non-white districts. Some folks in the party think Democrats can win in rural areas, too. Rhodes is pretty good at weaving together his biography and platform, aided by having (along with Ryan) the strongest in-district roots of the seven candidates. He shows a genuine interest in esoteric policy discussions not to check off boxes and make sure the activists know that he knows what they care about, but from a genuine place of intellectual curiosity.

The folks who need to find a reason not to trust someone point to Rhodes’ previous work as a press flak for Andrew Cuomo, back in the days when Cuomo antagonized progressives daily (before his 2018 lurch to the left that has convinced few of his good intentions, and has convinced many of his unending opportunism). As someone who has also been in the role of “young staffer to government official,” I would suggest that staffers do not necessarily embody all of the beliefs (or lackthereof) of those they staff…and the younger you are, the more likely that you’re gaining a foothold in government and need not hold a personal referendum every day on whether you are on the most perfect path to attaining progressive goals as someone else defines them.

It’s important to note, though, that Cuomo fared badly in the 2014 primary and general in this district. Rhodes has faced a stern test to earn the goodwill of primary voters who dismiss him by association – unfairly – and would face a sterner one to do the same with the general electorate. But a cascade of endorsements from major labor unions and the New York Times serves as a reminder of what anyone who interacts with Rhodes already knows: he’s not to be pigeonholed, and he’s not riding on youthful exuberance alone. He brings as much gravitas as the other candidates. But the very limited polling made available shows him barely registering, perhaps an indication that breaking through with somewhat limited funds relative to Ryan, Delgado and Flynn is simply too hard, even if you’re the guy who pops up everywhere. Democratic primary voters rightfully view the stakes as incredibly high this year, which may be clouding their ability to see youth and energy as an asset when fundamentals like fundraising and a vast ground game are missing.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum from Rhodes, and in fact most of this youthful field, is Dave Clegg. A 30-year Ulster resident and self-described “country lawyer,” Clegg has established his regional bona fides and has a career that leaves little doubt as to his qualifications and tenacity. He also has a committed base of support among some of Ulster County’s long-tenured progressive activists and elected officials. Given that Ulster County has the largest number of voters eligible for this primary – 30.5% of the total NY-19 Democratic electorate – it’s not a bad place from which to garner the bulk of one’s support. On the flipside, that he barely registers in Dutchess County beyond the “he’s a good guy” level and doesn’t seem to have secured a niche elsewhere in the way that, say, Flynn has, leaves me skeptical that he can prevail on Tuesday. Clegg methodically and cogently argues the case against Faso, and would likely make the party proud enough in a general election. It’s unlikely that he gets the chance, though, when the zeitgeist seems to call for someone who offers more superficial contrast to the older white men who have put the country where it is today.

If the starkest contrast to Faso and Trump’s base turns out to be what voters are seeking, Erin Collier is the obvious choice. She’s the only woman in the race and she’s the second-youngest candidate, behind Rhodes. As an agricultural economist, she offers a remedy to the anti-intellectual strain that, through Republican victories, dominates the federal government at this time (not to mention making her a useful asset to the district). She offers contrasts to her fellow primary candidates as well: not simply through her gender, but also through her roots in the western part of the district. She’s eighth-generation Otsego County, and claims a local hamlet is named for her family.

But her late entry into the race seems to have nullified those advantages. She was first rumored to be considering a bid late late in 2017, but didn’t officially declare until early March of this year…as petitioning was already underway. As a result, she lags in name recognition, fundraising, and organizing, though she has gotten a few mailers out.

Collier made some news last week by leaking a poll showing her far behind when preference was first gauged but closing to within a point of Delgado and Ryan after an “informed ballot” question in which voters were prompted with biographical information about some of the candidates. In a year when women are absolutely crushing it in Democratic primaries, it makes sense that the extra reminder – through informed ballot instead of just a litany of names – would lead to some voters switching over to Collier. It seems a longshot that enough people will do so in the confines of their poll sites tomorrow, but it’s worth noting that throughout the campaign men and women alike have lamented the lack of a woman in the field (Sue Sullivan dropped out in late September).

The final candidate in the race is Jeff Beals, who quickly established himself last year as the most abrasive candidate, throwing punches at his fellow candidates as corporate-owned and insufficiently liberal. In a district where Bernie Sanders triumphed in the 2016 Democratic primaries, Beals most clearly draws from the Sanders playbook. But to that strategy he adds biographical inconsistencies, resume inflation, poor fundraising and a tendency to whine about his bad breaks. There’s a certain type of angry Democrat for whom Beals is a dream candidate, and he has plenty of support among activists and some past and present local electeds. The possibility exists that in a sufficiently-splintered field, the guy who has tried to clam the Sanders mantle might succeed in a district who primary voters went heavily for Sanders and fellow crusading outsider Zephyr Teachout. It’s also worth noting, of course, that given the opportunity to send Teachout to Congress, the general electorate chose Faso decisively.

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I’d be surprised if anyone topped 30%; I’m not sure a candidate will even manage a quarter of the vote. To some degree, that’s a testament to the strength of the field, not its weakness. The story at the outset of this campaign was that none of the candidates seemed ready for prime-time, but most of them have developed nicely and seem to be plausible Faso foes. If I had to engage in the fool’s errand of predicting the outcome, I might assign vote shares as follows:

That’s a guess with a pretty high margin of error in what still feels to me like a very tight race. It’s a fairly highly-educated guess, combining endorsements, campaign filings, extremely limiting polling data, and anecdotal information from around the district. But it’s emphatically just that: a guess.

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Worth noting as you peruse the county-by-county results tomorrow night – the share of each county’s active Democratic voters relative to the district as a whole:

To help make those numbers a bit less abstract, some raw numbers: Ulster County had 43,203 active Democrats registered as of April 1. The district’s portion of Broome County – most of the town of Sanford, with the rest of the town and county lying in NY-22 – has 327 active Dems. But to repeat a point from above, it’s entirely possible that with four candidates residing in Ulster, the vote there will be so split that no one comes out of it with a big lead, meaning the smaller counties could prove decisive.