WALTON, N.Y. — There’s no way to avoid portraying Tuesday’s special election to fill the House seat vacated when Democrat Antonio Delgado became lieutenant governor in May as a national bellwether.
Yes, President Joe Biden carried this district by about 1.5 points in 2020 after Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost it by 1.7 points. And yes, there have been efforts to make the race a national referendum on everything from the president’s handling of inflation to the Supreme Court’s recent opinions on abortion and guns. But an August special election in a redistricting cycle on the same day as the House primary using different maps for November contests may be more complicated than that.
Republican Marc Molinaro, the 2018 GOP nominee for governor, is running in the special election to serve the remaining months of Delgado’s term, and in the November election for a full two-year term. Both elections are being run in the 19th District, but the constituents voting in those elections on Tuesday and in November will be different. He’s trying to keep the focus on voters rather than national politics.
