Signs of fraying between the national and state parties

Daily Point

When national parties lord over their state organizations

Both major national parties are so focused now on gaining control of Congress that their state affiliates are pushed and prodded to conform to the national bosses' preferred candidates.

The result can be divisive, if not chaotic.

In New York, President Donald Trump has intervened in the nomination of a Republican candidate to succeed upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik, who's out of Congress at the end of the year. He supports Anthony Constantino, who's the CEO of Sticker Mule, which sells custom stickers and magnets. Constantino, 43, is known politically in CD21 for posting a 100-foot-wide "Vote for Trump" sign on the company's manufacturing building in upstate Amsterdam in blatant defiance of that city's codes.

One can see why Trump preferred him. When the sign was lit in October 2024 Constantino told local news media that his friends told him, "Light the sign and spend a few days in jail," said Constantino. "At the last moment, [my lawyer] fixed everything. I'm not going to jail and we're gonna light the sign," he said at the time. Then he announced his lawyer got him "off the hook" and he wouldn't have to be incarcerated.

Endorsing Constantino, Trump called him "an America First patriot" and cited Constantino's support from indicted-then-pardoned MAGA provocateur and adviser Roger Stone.

Notably, this comes even though both state GOP chairman Ed Cox and the Conservative Party have strongly backed Assemb. Robert Smullen, 57, for the congressional nomination in CD21. Cox stated in March that Smullen "has stood up to one-party rule, defended our constitutional freedoms, backed law enforcement, and fought for the rural communities that are too often ignored by New York's political establishment."

Smullen has said he supports Trump policies, but that Constantino is a "fraud" and "fake conservative" who is "mentally unfit" to serve in Congress.

The most glaring controversy in the district so far concerns Constantino's hiring of a campaign staffer, Alec Flores, 30, who's out on bail in Nevada where he's facing murder charges in the 2023 stabbing death of a businessman, Jeffrey McCunn, after a party. Flores claims self-defense.

Stefanik decided to skip reelection after Trump refused to endorse her against Gov. Kathy Hochul in favor of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, now the nominee. In November, when Stefanik announced for the governorship, Cox called her a "unifier" and the "warrior we need." After she quit, however, Cox endorsed Blakeman with a primary no longer on the horizon.

On the Democratic side, the national party leadership faced an embarrassing intraparty fiasco in Maine. Sen. Chuck Schumer touted Gov. Janet Mills as a top recruit to take on Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins. But polls showed Mills, 78, failing to gain traction against oyster farmer and former military member Graham Platner, 41, in the Democratic primary.

Platner is a Marine Corps veteran who, at age 18, was quoted in the Bangor Daily News as saying President George W. Bush should not attack Iraq. "I started yelling, 'Don't attack Iraq. If our best generals tell us not to go to war, why should we?" he said at the time.

In 2018, clearly frustrated with the political and military establishments, Platner said: "Fight until you get tired of fighting with words and then fight with signs, and fists, and guns if need be." He said "an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice" and urged readers to "Get Armed, Get Organized. The Other Side Sure As Hell Is." He's clearly a left wing populist, and not a natural preference for Schumer.

Last Thursday, Mills explained she'd run out of funds to continue running and "suspended" her campaign. The state's primary is not until June 9. She and Platner had yet to debate. The Washington news site NOTUS quoted a Senate Democrat saying critically that "Schumer clearly went all out to try to recruit her. Clearly what he thought was going to be a big thing in Maine was not."

Amanda Litman, co-founder of the progressive recruitment group Run For Something, was quoted as saying Schumer "has an idea of what voters want that's stuck in 1996” and is "deeply removed from the anger that people feel."

State parties have long exercised broad electoral autonomy. National parties in Washington support an alignment of interests with the party rank and file, with voter data and money. But in the cases of CD21 and the Maine Senate contest, a fraying is visible. The United States will see if these internal state-versus-national party tensions mount going into November and beyond. 

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

Pencil Point

A Fed reservation

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