Party switch in Spa City

GOP members who ran on WFP line have jumped to Conservative party

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Some of the same city and county candidates who party-hopped from the Republican and Independence parties to run on the Working Families Party line in 2021 have changed their party affiliation again.

Former WFP candidates, who were unendorsed by the party — Samantha Guerra, David Labate, Gabriel O’brien, Donald Reeder and Maxwell Rosenbaum — have moved over to the Conservative Party. They are five out of 26 from Saratoga County who have now parted ways with what is traditionally the most left-leaning party to join the most right-leaning.

The Times Union was unable to reach the candidates who made the recent move. However, Thomas Sartin, a retired Saratoga Springs police officer who led what the WFP considered a takeover in 2021, also made the switch from the WFP to the Conservatives. On Monday, when asked if he was behind this second wave of change, he said little.

“It’s not anyone’s business,” Sartin said. “I don’t tell people what to do.”

Saratoga County Conservative Party Chair David Buchyn said he doesn’t know what’s going on, but is happy to welcome the new members to the ranks of the party.

“We have gained 131 new members since this past November,” Buchyn said in a text message. “Some of these new members are first-time registered voters. Others have come from other parties.”

Buchyn said he also noticed that many of his new members came from the WFP.

“It is unusual to see even one leftwing extremist WFP member join the Conservative Party, let alone over 20 within a short period of time,” he said.

The 2021 infiltration of GOP members into the WFP was an issue statewide, including in Rensselaer County.

There, former GOP members jumped to WFP, doubling the party’s size to roughly 2,000 enrollees. In Saratoga County, the WFP enrollment grew by 30 percent with 124 new members, 73 coming from the Republican Party and the rest from the now-defunct Independence Party, bringing its total up to 583 in 2021. With the recent changes, the Saratoga County Conservative Party’s enrollment has grown to 3,242 members.

It is unclear if the Conservatives are headed for a similar takeover, especially since the party is often aligned with the GOP. Yet in the 2022 election, Republicans and Conservatives came to blows over two candidates for state Supreme Court in the fourth district. Republicans backed Richard Kupferman and Chris Obstarczyk. The Conservatives rejected Kupferman and Obstarczyk and chose to back two Democrats, a move the Saratoga Springs GOP on Facebook said scandalized the nomination process. (The Nov. 4 post has since been removed.) Kupferman won, but Obstarczyk lost.

Prior to his failed bid, Obstarczyk was the chair of the city’s Republican Committee. He held that position in 2021 when his party members exited to join the WFP. At the time, he said he had nothing to do with the exodus. He said the same on Monday when asked about the former GOP/WFP members who have hopped to the Conservative Party.

“I have no idea,” Obstarzcyk said. “I’m a registered Republican.”

The new members could impact the Conservative line if they carry petitions for candidates. Buchyn said that petitioners only need 12 signatures to end up on his ballot line. As per state law, candidates need to collect signatures from 5 percent of registered voters from their party in the jurisdiction in which they seek to run for office.

Collecting signatures was how the former Republican members easily took over the WFP, even though none of the candidates who were former Republicans were interviewed or endorsed by WFP membership.

Still, the former Republicans were able to impact the WFP primary process by securing wins for their favored candidates and knocking those endorsed by the WFP off the party’s ballot line in the general elections. The WFP and Democrats joined together at an October news conference to urge all voters to reject candidates on their own WFP line and vote for Democrats. Joe Seeman, a WFP volunteer who makes the endorsements, told voters “they are phony candidates.”

“They are lying and scamming to grab power right here in Saratoga Springs,” Seeman said at the time.

On Monday, Seeman said that he’s happy that those with Republican ideologies have departed.

“It was an invasion,” Seeman said. “They don’t align with the Working Families Party values. We are happy to let the phonies go.”