NY-22: Upstate New York Republican draws a challenge
Air Force veteran Sarah Klee Hood on Thursday announced that she’s challenging freshman Republican Rep. Brandon Williams in New York’s 22nd District, a constituency in the Syracuse and Utica areas that Joe Biden took 53-45 but where Democrats have long struggled down the ballot. Republicans flipped a long-ago incarnation of this Syracuse-based seat in 1980, and the only two times they’ve lost it during the ensuing four decades of maps were when Democrat Dan Maffei pulled off nonconsecutive victories in 2008 and 2012.
Klee Hood, who is a member of the Town Board for the small community of DeWitt, brought in only about $170,000 when she sought the Democratic nomination last cycle, but she held frontrunner Francis Conole to a 40-35 victory. Conole reportedly has decided not to run again, and Klee Hood, who currently has the primary to herself, is arguing she’ll do far better on the financial front this time. She tells the National Journal that she’s since left her full-time job in order to have time to focus on her campaign, declaring, “I have called in the last few weeks more people for fundraising than I had the entire cycle last year.”
Williams, last time, overcame $1 million in primary spending from the Congressional Leadership Fund and defeated businessman Steve Wells, whom the powerful GOP super PAC evidently believed was a more electable option to replace retiring Republican Rep. John Katko. But the CLF and NRCC put aside any doubts about Williams in the general and spent a combined $5.8 million to help him in the general, compared to $4.3 million from its Democratic counterparts. Williams ultimately won 50-49 in a race where he had some big help at the top of the ticket: According to data calculated by Bloomberg’s Greg Giroux, Republican Lee Zeldin beat Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul 53-47 here as Williams was pulling off his tight win.
However, no one’s sure yet if the new congressman will be defending the same boundaries he won in 2022. Hochul and Attorney General Tish James recently filed a brief in support of a lawsuit asking that the court-drawn congressional and state Senate maps used in 2022 be replaced by maps drawn by the state's redistricting commission. A trial-level court rejected that request last year, but plaintiffs have appealed that ruling to an intermediate appellate court. The case could ultimately wind up before the Court of Appeals, New York's top court, which is about to undergo some major changes.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163752/-Upstate-New-York-Republican-draws-a-challenge-months-after-he-narrowly-won-seat-Biden-carried
