In NY House toss up, candidates court moderates by calling each other extreme

PHILMONT, N.Y. — Sherry Salvatore is the kind of voter causing grief for both Republicans and Democrats.

She thinks Republican Marc Molinaro should win his congressional race in a wide swath of upstate New York because the Dutchess County executive — who has been running for various elected offices since he was 18 years old — has “paid his dues. He’s a good man, and it’s his turn.”

But the 76-year-old Republican isn’t sold on any one party line. She only registered with the GOP because 50 years ago she was trying to get a job with the county, she said. Abortion rights are important to her, too.

“Listen, I’m not a big pro-abortion person, but here’s the thing: It’s my body, if it [a pregnancy] affected my life — it’s my choice," she added.

A good share of New York’s new 19th Congressional District is filled with voters like Salvatore, open to ticket splitting and turned off by politicians sitting too far on either end of the political spectrum.

The race is one of the biggest battleground races in the nation as control of the House hangs in the balance. Republicans are hoping for a red wave that can carry moderate candidates like Molinaro to victory after he lost a special election in August.

POLITICO’s forecast lists it as one of the two toss-up races in New York — of the 28 toss-up races nationwide — in a district that President Joe Biden would have won in 2020 by 5 percentage points.

So both Molinaro and his Democratic opponent Josh Riley are working to convince voters they are affable moderates while trying to paint their opponents as wild zealots.

And the airwaves are fueling the vitriol. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, bolstered by Molinaro's lose to Democrat Pat Ryan in late August, has spent $2.2 million so far, part of nearly $8 million that outside groups have spent on the race.

One Democratic ad suggests Molinaro is trying to ban abortion with no exceptions. “POLITICIANS BANNING ABORTION NATIONWIDE,” “EVEN FOR VICTIMS OF RAPE AND INCEST” “TOO EXTREME,” flashes across the 30-second spot.

Molinaro said in an interview with POLITICO that the ad is simply not true: “The only thing extreme about me is I’m extremely dedicated to trying to represent people," referencing his multiple campaigns over the years, including an unsuccessful run for governor in 2018. “They’re just truly lying.”

While he opposes abortion personally, Molinaro said he would not support a national abortion ban nor would he try to roll back any of New York’s abortion laws. And he said understands the “challenge of the choice” that women have to deal with when considering an abortion, calling it a decision more difficult than he could imagine.

Molinaro does not agree with New York's laws that allow abortions up to and including 24 weeks of pregnancy, and he would want to “at least talk” about restricting late-term abortions — which he views as those after 17 weeks — to cases of rape, incest or endangering the life of a mother. But he acknowledges the whole issue would probably be outside the role he’s running for.

“Congress, in my opinion, has no ability to limit New York's law,” he said. “The Supreme Court said it is not a federal responsibility. It is now states’ responsibility. Therefore New York's rule of law — despite the fact that I wish it did restrict late-term abortion just to those to those cases — New York's law remains. “

Roughly 40 miles south and west across the Hudson River, Riley had his own grievance to set straight with the bevy of negative ads against him.

He told a mountainside gathering hosted by the Woodstock Democratic Committee that ads they may have seen about him from the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund Super PAC, the Republican group that has spent $3.6 million on the race, are “categorically false."

The ads suggest he is part of a far-left movement to defund the police based on donations he’s received from groups that have supported the movement. His mother and cousin have both worked in the state corrections systems and he “believes public safety requires more resources, not fewer.”

“It’s this grainy image of me and it says something like ‘Josh Riley is extreme and dangerous.’” Riley said during a brief forum where candidates for Congress, the state Legislature and state Supreme Court hyped up the local Democratic base.

Riley, who lives in Ithaca, joked that his wife’s reaction to the ad was that he isn’t capable of being that scary: “[She said] ‘If they just knew how big of a dork you are; how much money they’re wasting.'"

A poll from late September showed Riley was up by 5 percentage points over Molinaro in the district, which stretches across 11 counties through the Hudson Valley, Southern Tier and into the Finger Lakes.

It’s a new seat after redistricting this year and an open one after Rep. Antonio Delgado resigned in August to serve as lieutenant governor. It's slightly more Democratic leaning than the previous district.

Riley — who pulled in more than $1 million in the most recent quarter — has raised about $2.9 million and still had $1.2 million in cash on hand earlier this month compared to Molinaro’s $2 million raised with about $405,000 in cash on hand.

Both say they’ve been aggressively traversing the district, though Molinaro, 47, who's been campaigning throughout the region and state since he became the country’s youngest mayor at age 19, says he doesn’t know Riley, nor has he seen him out on the campaign trail.

Riley, 41, moved back to Ithaca earlier this year to run in the district after spending his post-law school years outside the state, including as general counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington.

“I have not run into Josh once, and that is categorically impossible unless you're not showing up with things,” Molinaro said from the Philmont firehouse, where he arrived up with little fanfare and walked around chatting with residents — some of whom he’s known for years — who were walking along folding tables filled with second-hand housewares.

“He rented an apartment in Ithaca for the last seven months. He's been living in Washington D.C. for the last several years. And not to begrudge that guy — we all have a right to run — and redistricting has caused a lot of headaches, but no, I know he's a lawyer from Washington, DC and that's it.”

Riley, on the other hand, is calling Molinaro’s long record of elected office that of a career politician.

Riley is focusing on his roots as a fifth-generation upstater whose ancestors have supported themselves through the region’s now hollowed-out industries — making shoes at the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company and then circuit boards at the IBM factories. He’s got a host of ideas to revitalize the beleaguered upstate economy.

While abortion has emerged the marquee issue in several competitive districts, neither candidate is convinced that abortion is the primary issue voters in New York’s 19th are considering in the final weeks before until Election Day.

“I will never tell a voter what's important to them is not important,” Molinaro said. “To some voters, abortion is the issue and I respect that. But most people I interact with are really concerned about two things: It is being able to pay their bills and for their own safety.”

Last month, polling showed more than half of voters in the region (52 percent) said that economic issues were one of their top two issues in choosing a candidate. Riley said that as a first time candidate, his pitch to voters, regardless of party affiliation, is that he’s a necessary “new voice, new vision, new leadership.”

“I was having a conversation with one of my own neighbors and he said something like, ‘we're not really Democrat here or Republican here. We just are angry with everybody, equally,’” Riley said. “And I don't think that's wrong. The way this has been working for a long time; it just hasn't been working for working folks here.”