In Upstate Congressional Race, a ‘Classic Boxers’ Match’ That Is Virtually Tied
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Version 0 of 1. NEW PALTZ, N.Y. — The two candidates, current and former, stood with arms around each other, an American flag behind them, an adoring crowd before them. Most of the rally’s attendees came for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, whose campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination became a grass-roots phenomenon. But Mr. Sanders was there to support a Democrat with grass-roots credentials of her own: Zephyr Teachout, who is running for Congress. In some ways, the race in New York’s 19th Congressional District, which reaches across 11 upstate counties, is the presidential race turned inside out. The Republican candidate, John J. Faso, is a career political insider who will not say if he will vote for his party’s outsider nominee for president, Donald J. Trump. Ms. Teachout is a political insurgent more closely aligned with Mr. Sanders than her party’s establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Faso is a former state assemblyman who ran unsuccessfully for governor against Eliot Spitzer in 2006 and for state comptroller in 2002. Ms. Teachout is a law professor who made a surprisingly strong showing against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the Democratic primary two years ago. They are seeking to capture the open seat being vacated by Representative Chris Gibson, a Republican who announced in May that he was leaving politics. “This is the marquee race, and if the Democrats are to make real gains in the House nationally this is the kind of seat that they need to pick up,” said Bruce N. Gyory, a Democratic political consultant. “You have the classic boxers’ match between the ring-wise boxing technician versus the young up and comer.” The contest is close: A Time Warner Cable News/Siena College poll released last week had the race as a virtual tie, with Mr. Faso receiving 43 percent and Ms. Teachout receiving 42 percent, with 15 percent undecided. The poll had a margin of sampling error of 3.8 percentage points. The district is one of just six of the state’s 27 congressional districts where Mr. Sanders beat Mrs. Clinton in the presidential primary in April, and Mr. Sanders has enthusiastically supported Ms. Teachout, whose left-of-center views echo his own. At the rally on Sept. 16, Mr. Sanders and Ms. Teachout attracted more than 1,000 people to a grassy park in New Paltz, home to a campus of the State University of New York, where many students are avid Sanders supporters. “This race is one of the most important congressional races in America because the choices are so clear,” Mr. Sanders said, contrasting the two candidates on issues like campaign finance and free trade. Ms. Teachout and Mr. Faso certainly have starkly different views on policy. She sits firmly in the Democratic Party’s left wing, while his hard-right voting record in the Assembly, including a vote against equal pay for women and longstanding opposition to abortion rights, led more moderate Republicans to initially resist his candidacy for governor in 2006. Yet the race may turn on other factors. Mr. Faso is well known in the district, which encompasses a large part of the Catskills, a section of the Hudson Valley and includes the Assembly district that he represented for 16 years. His two campaigns for statewide office raised his profile further. In contrast, Ms. Teachout is a newcomer to the district, where she moved last year from Brooklyn. She also is relatively new to politics: The 2014 primary race against Mr. Cuomo was her first. Mr. Faso has criticized his opponent as a carpetbagger and for being politically out of step with the district. “She’s pie in the sky and I’m practical,” he said. Campaigning at an apple festival in Germantown on a recent Saturday, many of the people with whom Mr. Faso shook hands had known him, at least casually, for years. “All I know about Zephyr Teachout is she was in the governor’s race at one point,” said Frank Santacroce, 78, a volunteer at the festival who chatted briefly with Mr. Faso. “It makes it tough to decide.” Mr. Santacroce said he usually voted Republican, but was willing to cross party lines, although not in this case. “I know John Faso,” he said. “You have to say he’s a nice guy.” A day earlier, at the Sanders rally for Ms. Teachout in New Paltz, Molly Franco, 21, a SUNY student, said that her sociology class, which usually met at that time, had insisted that their professor let them attend the rally. But Mr. Sanders was the draw. Without him, she said, “probably a couple people would come if they said it was extra credit.” Ms. Franco said that she had not yet taken a close look at the congressional candidates, but that Mr. Sanders’s endorsement of Ms. Teachout could help persuade her. The district is almost equally divided along party lines, with 135,193 active voters registered as Republicans and 132,818 registered as Democrats, according to the State Board of Elections. There is also a large contingent of independent voters, with 114,577 active voters holding no party affiliation. Both parties have singled out the race as a priority, but the National Republican Congressional Committee and allied groups have committed far more money. The N.R.C.C. and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a “super PAC” that supports Republican House candidates, have spent more than $800,000 so far on television advertising, and the N.R.C.C. has reserved additional television time worth more than $1.4 million. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent just $80,000 and reserved about $100,000. The expenditures were provided by two people, one Democrat and one Republican, who had access to data that tracked political spending from both parties but were not authorized to disclose them. Both candidates said the race could come down to independent voters. “It is one of the swingiest districts you’ll find in America,” Ms. Teachout said in an interview after the rally, listing candidates who had won there in recent years, including President Obama, a Democrat, and Mr. Gibson. “What you see there is people making an independent choice,” she said. Ms. Teachout said her campaign had been financed, as was Mr. Sanders’s, largely by small internet donations, with the average contribution being $19. In contrast, she said, Mr. Faso is supported by a super PAC that has taken contributions of $600,000 and $500,000 from two hedge fund managers who are major Republican donors. Ms. Teachout had raised $1.6 million through the end of June, according to the most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, while Mr. Faso had raised $1.4 million. But Ms. Teachout still had $1.1 million left to spend while Mr. Faso had just $147,000. In her conversations with voters, Ms. Teachout said she heard the anti-establishment anger that led to the popularity of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump. “They are not looking for a career politician,” she said. “I’m not going to be beholden. I’m bottom up.” Ms. Teachout stands to gain from Mr. Sanders’s sway with the party’s most liberal voters and could also get a boost if Mrs. Clinton has a strong showing against Mr. Trump. That is where Mr. Faso’s road gets bumpier. “I’m going to support the Republican nominee,” Mr. Faso said in an interview at a Germantown coffee shop. But he refused to say if he would vote for Mr. Trump. Pressed to give a yes or no answer, he said: “I’m not saying I’ll vote for him. I’m not saying I won’t vote for him. I’m saying I have some clear policy differences with him. I’m not voting for Hillary Clinton.” In the April primary, Mr. Trump won 60 percent of the vote in the district, a strong showing but far from his best in the state, where he won every congressional district but one. Mr. Faso acknowledged that Mr. Trump could cost him some votes among independents. While Mr. Faso casts Ms. Teachout as an outsider to the district, she portrays him as an insider of the political establishment, emphasizing his work, since leaving government, as a lobbyist . Mr. Faso predicted that the race would come down to some basic choices between liberal and conservative, idealism and experience. “In some respects,” he said, “it’s a barometer as to what approach the country wants to take.” |