ROME, N.Y. – He has a 20-track hip-hop album titled “Thank you President Trump.” He gifted Donald Trump a 7-foot bronze statue in the president's likeness for his West Palm Beach golf club.
His congressional campaign website includes a page that lists the ways he’s like the 80-year-old real estate mogul. He says that if elected, he’ll answer to his constituents, Trump and his moral compass – in that order. And he says he’ll co-sponsor legislation to add Trump’s face to Mount Rushmore.
Sticker Mule founder and CEO Anthony Constantino, 44, is easily one of the most pro-Trump candidates who’s currently running for Congress.
But with the president’s popularity sagging, the brash business owner, who gained notoriety for constructing a 100-foot sign
supporting Trump two years ago, is struggling to win over Republicans in deep-red territory in upstate New York.
So on the eve of the midterm election, Vice President JD Vance made an early morning stop in the district Trump carried by 21 percentage points in an attempt to give Constantino a last-minute boost. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., a close friend of Vance's, traveled with the vice president and spoke ahead of him at the rally.
"This is of course my final day on the midterm campaign trail, and I was trying to think where is the best location to kick off this final day," Vance said as he spoke at an airport hangar in Rome. The vice president said he was looking for a place with beautiful scenery and has red-blooded, patriotic Americans. "And it hit me, ladies and gentlemen, to get all of those things, all roads lead to Rome, New York."
Vance said in his remarks that he was there to "celebrate and honor" Constantino, who he said was going to make a great congressman.
The eleventh-hour push from the White House and the Republican National Committee to turn out Republicans in the congressional district that shares a border with Canada comes after an October survey showed Constantino trailing his Democratic opponent, dairy farmer Blake Gendebien, by several points in the district that’s been represented for more than a decade by retiring GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Democrats say the challenges confronting Republicans in the race are also indicative of another headwind the party in power has run into across the map: a longtime lawmaker retired and the GOP failed to recruit an establishment candidate who could win at a time when polling shows Trump is a drag.
The dynamics in the district in many ways mirror the political reality confronting Republicans across the country as Democrats push into areas once considered safely in the GOP's control.
“It really speaks volumes to the desperation I think they're facing,” former New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley said of Vance’s election eve visit. “I think it also comes down to the lack of quality candidates. You're not just seeing it in the 21st, you're seeing it in other parts of the country.”
Democrats have been targeting New York’s 21st Congressional District since Constantino won his June primary against New York state assemblyman Robert Smullen by nearly 20 points with Trump’s support. New York City's former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Trump loyalist Roger Stone were among his top endorsers.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee moved Gendebien to their list of top-tier candidates in early October, helping his campaign unlock additional financial resources in his fight against Constantino, who’s spent nearly $17 million of his own money on the self-funded run.
An upset in the district is still seen as unlikely by political prognosticators. Constantino is favored to win in forecasts from Decision Desk HQ and several others.
A Public Policy Polling survey taken for House Majority PAC, a group that’s linked to Democratic leader and New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, from mid October showed Constantino 2 percentage points up.
Still, if the GOP is having a bad night, the Cook Political Report predicts that seats it ranks as lean or likely Republican, like this one, could be part of a wipeout that puts Democrats well over the 218 seats they need to win the House majority.
"We must get every Republican, independent, and common-sense Democrat out to vote Republican to Fire Kathy Hochul and hold our Congressional seat," Constantino said in a statement on the election eve rally with Vance.
A Republican hotbed
As they look to keep the House from slipping away, Republicans are following a similar playbook in upstate New York as in other parts of the country: leaning on the Republican Party’s two leading figures.
The president and vice president have been crisscrossing the country, making multiple appearances in states such as Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Texas that they easily carried in 2024 but now face highly competitive races.
“I’m asking you to get out and vote for a very good friend of mine, Anthony Constantino, to be your next Congressman for New York’s 21st District. He has my complete and total confidence,” Trump said in an Oct. 29 video filmed inside the Oval Office.
The GOP is betting that the staunch Trump ally can pull off a win by juicing GOP turnout in the district where the number of registered Republicans outnumbers Democrats and unaffiliated voters.
Stefanik easily won her first race in 2014. She had double-digit victories in every contest that followed, until she gave up the seat to run for governor.
“Filling her shoes was always going to be tough,” said GOP strategist Mark Bednar, who was communications director for former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
A Democrat represented the district, whose boundaries have since been redrawn, before Stefanik won. She initially presented herself as a moderate, before tacking hard to the right.
Not only did Stefanik flip what had been a blue seat, Bednar said, she was a good fundraiser and communicator, and she was well-liked by her constituents.
“When you're in an open seat, no matter the climate, that's still a new person who has to introduce himself or herself to voters and to donors and to the political landscape,” he said.
“We're seeing this across the country with a lot of retirements that this is an issue,” Bednar added. “You have to start from scratch and that involves the sweat equity of doing rallies and doing events.”
Constantino is a newcomer to politics and runs a T-shirt and sticker business that boasts more than 7.8 million customers. He says he’ll work with Trump “to stop drugs, crime, terrorism, and low-wage labor from crossing our northern border” and provide the best constituent services in Congress.
Gendebien, meanwhile, is running as a moderate and pledging to bring back expired Obamacare subsidies, advocate for more Border Patrol agents, work to bring down the price of fuel, fertilizer and groceries, and assert congressional authority over the war in Iran.
In a statement on the Vance rally, Gendebien’s campaign took a slap at Constantino over the location of the Nov. 2 event.
“Anthony Constantino didn’t know Rome was the biggest city in the district he’s running to represent, so the White House is flying the Vice President in to show him where it is,” Gendebien campaign manager Michael Waller said.
Waller also jabbed Constantino for needing the help of a heavy hitter in the district Stefanik won two years ago by 24 percentage points.
“You don’t send the Vice President to a plus-24 seat the day before the election unless you know you’re losing it,” the Democrat wrote.
Riding Republican coattails
GOP operatives familiar with the race say that having Vance in the district is smart politics.
They also hope that support for Republican gubernatorial candidate and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman will drive more GOP voters to the polls.
Trump Jr. told attendees it was "borderline crazy" for Constantino to keep his business in New York based on the policies of the Democrats governing the state.
"Why would you sit out in the election instead of going and voting straight-ticket Republican?" Trump Jr. asked.
In a Siena survey released on Oct. 9, Blakeman was significantly ahead in his race, with 55% of likely voters’ support. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul was at 40% in the survey that was limited to the congressional district.
The same poll showed Gendebien leading Constantino 46%-42%, with independent write-in candidate Christopher Schmidt pulling in 5% support and 8% of voters saying they preferred someone else.
Much of Constantino's lag came from within his own party: just 65% of Republicans said they were supporting him compared to 21% who said they weren’t. He was not liked by 31% of Republicans surveyed and had an unfavorable rating with 57% of independents.
Gendebien fared far better with members of his own party – 85% of likely Democratic voters said they were backing him compared to 10% who said they weren’t.
The Constantino campaign disputes the results of that survey, which included Schmidt, whose name will not appear on the ballot. Senior adviser Alex DeGrasse also argued in an Oct. 9 memo that was provided to USA TODAY that the survey undercounts Republican support for Blakeman, Stefanik and Trump.
Constantino adviser Roger Stone also told USA TODAY that the poll was wrong. But he said that with Democrats spending heavily in the race and Constantino self-funding, "Why take a chance."
Stone said he requested that the vice president, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent or Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the White House approved Vance.
Vance's travel was dictated by the White House, another person familiar with the vice president's schedule said.
Constantino has stayed close to Trump in recent weeks, as he tried to increase his own vote share.
He spoke at a Trump rally on Oct. 9 rally in Syracuse, New York, where the president promised to give his campaign"a little money." Constantino also appeared on stage with Trump at a Long Island rally on Aug. 14 in Garden City, New York.
In his remarks in New York, Vance talked up the administration's push to end taxes on tips and overtime, and said he and Trump had fought to lower costs for farmers. He also said that the administration stopped illegal migration and drug trafficking across the northern and southern borders.
Comparing Constantino to Trump, the vice president said. "The other thing that I like about Anthony is that he is funding his campaign out of his own pocket."
He praised Constantino for building his business in the United States and hiring Americans.
"He has fought for American workers, let's fight for Anthony tomorrow at the ballot box."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: This deep-red district is in danger. JD Vance is on a rescue mission
