Rep. Faso says voter anger toward Trump fueled Delgado victory
U.S. Rep. John Faso on Wednesday blamed anger at President Donald Trump for his loss to Democratic newcomer Antonio Delgado in New York’s 19th Congressional District.
“I was confident that we would be able to prevail, but the combination of the money against me ... and the general antipathy for Trump that’s out there combined to make it a very difficult seat in a year like this,” Faso, R-Kinderhook, said by phone Wednesday.
“The bottom line was the environment was very difficult,” he said. “The Democrats had a lot of enthusiasm, and most of it was directed at Trump.”
According to the state Board of Elections, Delgado beat Faso 132,001 to 124,408 with all 619 precincts reporting in the 11- county district.
Delgado carried only three of the 11 counties, but his overwhelming margin of victory in Ulster County was the key to him winning the race.
Faso said he was cast as a Trump foot soldier early in his term and could not overcome the characterization.
He said the biggest contributing factors to his loss were “over-
whelmingly the animosity toward Trump” and what he said was false, negative advertising against him.
“I’m glad that it’s over,” he said. “I’m very disappointed in the outcome, but I respect the judgment.”
Political action committees that supported Faso repeatedly aired ads that focused on Delgado’s brief career as rap artist some years ago, casting the Democrat’s lyrics as vulgar, misogynist and anti-American. The Faso campaign also painted Delgado as an outsider whose cultural and political values were derived from New York City.
Critics said the ads were intended to make an issue of race — Delgado is black — in a district that is 90 percent white. Asked during the campaign to disavow the commercials, Faso refused, claiming it would violate a federal law that prohibits coordination with independent political action committees.
Faso was endorsed by the president late in the campaign, even as the congressman said he had not voted for Trump in 2016.
Anti-Trump activists in the district were steady in their criticism of Faso as enabling a Republican agenda closely tied to the president.
“That was already out there among the activists,” he said. “That’s what motivated a lot of the activity to begin with.”
Faso tried to distance himself from Trump on some issues, including tax reform, but he said Wednesday that there was a perception of association that he could not shake.
“I think the cake was baked pretty early,” he said.
“I knew I was going to be in a competitive race right from when I was elected two years ago, and I never changed that opinion,” he said. “I always felt it was going to be a close race, and the polling obviously confirmed that.”
With voters evenly split among Democrats, Republicans and independents, the 19th District, which backed President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and then favored Trump in 2016, was seen as a tossup in 2018.
On Tuesday, Delgado clobbered Faso in Ulster County, 43,119 to 27,182, and even won Columbia County, where Faso lives, 13,897 to 11,268. The Democrat also carried Dutchess County, 23,116 to 21,660, while Faso easily won Greene County, 9,970 to 7,016.
Faso carried Broome, Delaware, Montgomery, Otsego, Rensselaer, Schoharie and Sullivan counties, but his winning margins there weren’t enough to make up for his losses elsewhere.
Faso said he was not surprised Delgado beat him in Columbia County because the political demographics there have changed.
“There’s been a big surge in registration here on the Democratic side and a slippage in Republicans as people pass on or move away,” he said.
Faso said he did not consider Delgado to have put forward any particularly unique ideas while campaigning.
“I thought they were standard, left[ist] boilerplate,” he said. “I didn’t think there was anything special about them.”
A spokesperson for Delgado said the congressman- elect was not available to talk with the press on Wednesday.
In a victory speech Tuesday night at the Senate Garage in Kingston, Delgado cited themes from his campaign as the keys to victory.
“I ... know those of us in this room and across this district never gave up hope even in the darkest times, and tonight, we sent out an unmistakable message that we can fix what’s broken,” he said. “Loud and clear.”
Without mentioning Faso or Trump specifically, Delgado added that “too many of our political leaders have fed into this divisiveness and partisanship out of self-interest and a lust for power at the expense of our democracy.”
Delgado, 41, campaigned on a plank supporting a public option to participate in health insurance programs offered through the government and said prescriptions for medicine could be less expensive if government programs could negotiate for lower prices in the the same way private markets are allowed to do.
He rapped the Trump administration for failing to keep a promise to seek a massive program to improve the nation’s infrastructure and criticized Congress for failing to embrace alternative energy sources, which he said could provide jobs and serve to give the nation energy independence.
A Rhodes scholar and Harvard Law School graduate, Delgado grew up in Schenectady, married a woman from Woodstock and moved to Rhinebeck in 2017. He worked as an attorney for the firm Akin Gump.