About three-quarters of the way through a recent Matt Castelli campaign “town hall” forum at the Otsego County Fair, a man in the audience spoke up and said, “I just wanted you to emphasize that you do have a primary.”
Castelli, one of two candidates in the Aug. 23 Democratic primary in the 21st Congressional District, responded, concisely, “There is a primary with one other candidate running in this race — a very nice fellow. But we believe we have the strongest chance to defeat Congresswoman Stefanik.”
Castelli, a former CIA counterterrorism official from Glens Falls, and Matt Putorti, lawyer from Whitehall, are competing in the Aug. 23 primary for the Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville.
Early voting begins Saturday.
Castelli and Putorti both recently began airing campaign television ads focused on criticism of Stefanik.
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Neither candidate’s ad mentions the Aug. 23 primary or mentions his primary opponent.
This is in sharp contrast to the House Democratic primary in Vermont, where candidates have been running a multitude of ads focused specifically on getting out the vote in this week’s state primary on Tuesday.
It is somewhat common for a political candidate not to mention an opponent by name, but it appears that Castelli and Putorti, at least in their public comments and advertising, have already moved on to the general election.
“It is somewhat audacious,” said Matthew Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. “They seem to be taking the nomination for granted, or wanting people to think they are taking the nomination for granted.”
Dickinson said the strategy seems to make more sense for Castelli, who is already on the general election ballot and “based on my reading of the tea leaves” has a greater chance of winning the Aug. 23 primary than Putorti.
The difference between the 21st District primary and the Vermont Democratic primary is that in Vermont, the winner of the Democratic primary is “almost certain” to win the general election.
“So, there’s a different dynamic here (in Vermont),” he said.
Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political strategist in New York City, said that Castelli and Putorti apparently recognize the importance of going into the general election with a strong offense against Stefanik.
“Concentrating on her is actually a good campaign strategy,” he said. “Not ripping each other apart makes it easier to run against her in the fall.”
Sheinkopf said Stefanik is a “very strong candidate,” but has “some vulnerabilities” in her support for Donald Trump and controversy over the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“Even up there, people are tired of all he chaos,” he said.
The strategy somewhat makes sense, but could backfire if it diminishes primary turnout, said Patrick Nelson of Stillwater, who was a Democratic primary candidate in the 2018 21st Congressional District race, and has since managed several state legislative campaigns and worked on Bernie Sanders’ 2020 New Hampshire presidential primary field staff.
National political donors use the margin of victory in a primary as a gauge of which general election races to contribute to, he explained.
“To not give the date of the primary, I would say, is going a little too far with that strategy,” he said. “It seems like an attempt to play four-dimensional chess, when politics is checkers.”
In the 2018 primary, too, candidates agreed to focus much of their criticism on Stefanik, Nelson said.
“We’re all on the same team, we’re just trying to find out who will be the team captain,” was the strategy, he said.
Former Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, questioned the logic of the strategy.
“Elise Stefanik is in a very strong position to be re-elected and every national analyst has rated this seat as ‘Safe Republican’,” Faso said. “It is an odd strategy for a challenger to not focus on the race immediately in front of them — namely the Aug. 23 primary.”