Faso doesn't expect one party to dominate
The Mid-Hudson's Republican congressman predicts their will be neither a 'blue wave' nor a 'red tsunami.'
Hudson Valley Congressman John Faso doesn’t believe a so-called “blue wave” of Democratic election victories this fall will materialize. But he also disagrees with President Donald Trump that there will be a “red tsunami” of Republican triumphs at the polls.
“A lot fewer people are talking about that anymore,” Rep. Faso, R-Kinderhook, said of Democrats picking up a large number of seats in Congress this fall. “I was sent here (to the House), in my mind, to try to get things done — and regardless of the political consequences, one way or the other.”
Faso, a first-term congressman, is being challenged in the Nov. 6 election by Democrat Antonio Delgado of Rhinebeck, who won a seven-person primary on June 26, as well as by two independents and two minor-party candidates.
“There’s a number of signs in recent months that indicate the level of Democratic enthusiasm and anti-Trump feeling is still out there, [but] it has abated a bit, and Republican enthusiasm is coming up,” Faso said.
He pointed to recent primaries in California as a good sign for Republicans.
“I think in seven of the eight most competitive races out in California, the Republican vote outpolled the Democratic vote,” Faso said. “So that’s an indication that both sides take that the level of Republican intensity is coming up.”
In California, all candidates in a given race — regardless of party — are on a single primary ballot, and the top two votegetters move on to the fall election. That makes it possible for two members of the same party to be the only two people running for a seat in November. There was a fear among some Democrats that having a large number of their party’s members on the ballots in recent primaries would allow Republicans to win the top two spots in numerous races, but that worry turned out to be largely unfounded.
Downplaying Trump’s prediction of a “red tsunami,” Faso said: “I think every district is going to have its own set of factors that will influence the outcome.”
The Delgado campaign said the Democratic candidate would not comment for this article.
Democrats need to pick up 23 seats in the House to take control of the chamber, and they need to flip two seats in the Senate to overtake the GOP there.
Faso acknowledged that Trump has not made things easy for Republican candidates, but he said voters recognize which representatives have opposed the president on issues such as separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Faso on June 20 lauded Trump’s decision to stop the separations, but earlier the same day the congressman stood by Trump’s assertion that immigration agents simply were following the law.)
Faso said he has been in the same room as Trump only twice — during a House GOP caucus meeting and once in the Oval Office — but wasn’t able to speak directly to the president either time.
Had he been able to, Faso said, “my advice would be don’t tweet as much, and only tweet on policy matters.”
Faso and Delgado are vying for the seat in New York’s 19th Congressional District, which comprises all of Ulster, Greene and Columbia counties; most of Dutchess County; and some or all of seven other counties.