What's Up in the Special Election in NY-21?

To get different percentages, we need to do things differently

With Republican Elise Stefanik packing her bags to move into the United Nations Ambassador’s penthouse (known as the “palace”) in Manhattan, a Special Election is anticipated in NY’s 21st Congressional District.

The process in New York is that the “local party leaders” meet to nominate a candidate for the ballot. There is no primary. The governor does not appoint someone to the House of Representatives, even in the event of a vacancy.

Kudos to each of you on this list who supported my campaign in November 2024. Together, we got more votes than any other Democrat has gotten in recent memory.

Raw Data

In raw numbers, my campaign received more votes than any other Democrat on the NY-21 ballot, going back to the last Democrat to hold this seat, Bill Owens.*

• Bill Owens 2012 – 50.1% with 126,631 votes

• Woolf 2014 – 33.5% with 54,796 votes

• Derek 2016 – 30% with 82,161 votes

• Cobb 2018 – 42.4% with 99,791 votes

• Cobb 2020 – 41.1% with 131,992 votes

• Castelli 2022 – 40.8% with 116,421 votes

• Collins 2024 – 38.0% with 132,447 votes

*NYTimes data, except for data on Bill Owens, which was from Ballotpedia.

That means more people took time out of their day to show up at the polls and cast a vote for me than they had for any other Democratic candidate.

Whoa! But what’s with those percentage drops?

Well, they are disturbing. They point to a problem that is bigger than any one person or any one problem.

Since November, I’ve spent a lot of time asking myself how we could have lost 2.8 percentage points, while gaining 16,025 votes.

Since Trump entered politics, we have seen the steady slide of Democrats’ margins in rural areas.

What becomes apparent is that the MAGAs have done an incredible job of registering voters and getting them to show up at the polls. Big time.

Meanwhile, Democrats have also stepped up their GOTV game. But obviously we have room for improvement.

It takes not only good candidates, but a strong effort across multiple levels of the party.

It takes a village to raise those percentages

We need to work together. Superman could literally fly in to NY-21 with a $2 billion campaign budget, and it would not make a bit of difference if he couldn’t register more voters and then actually get them to the polls. Even a Wealthy Superman needs a team to get elected.

In rural counties, Democrats need to be willing to call or knock on doors of unlikely voters. The MAGAs certainly do.

How many of my true blue Democrat friends in NY-21 have gotten literature, email, texts, or phone calls from Republican candidates? I sure have.

Dems are shy about outreach in potentially unfriendly waters. I get it – there have been a few high-profile and tragic incidents, such as what happened in one of the 15 counties in NY-21 when a young driver pulled up in a stranger’s driveway to turn around and was shot by a zealous and suspicious homeowner.

There are also incidents in which you knock on a door and people scream at you for saying the word “Democrat”. (Usually they start with “What are you?” I always want to respond something like “Um. I’m human – that’s what I am.”)

In the 2024 campaign, I knocked on doors randomly – just picking a street and going door to door. Of course I had a few people close the door quickly. “Nope. Nope. Nope,” one woman said.

But I also had the experience of talking to voters who seemed, by outward appearances, to look as rural-red-Republican as possible and yet they thanked me and said they planned to vote for me.

If we don’t knock, we will never know.

And if we don’t knock, the voters will continue to feel disconnected, forgotten, and unheard. And then we lose more percentage points.

Sounds logical. So why am I saying this?

I’m saying all of this because I’ve had heated discussions with people who are active in local Democratic politics (some of them even town chairs!) who say that they will canvass, but they will NOT knock on doors of Republicans.

I’ve had people who are active in local Democratic politics say they won’t even send a postcard to a Republican. And I was the one supplying the cards, the labels, and the postage.

Truthfully, a lot of the 132,447 votes that were cast for me were from people who are registered Republicans. In one county, Republicans (usually spouses of Democrats) even showed up for the Democratic county committee dinner at the VFW!

Once we have a candidate, you need to temporarily lose your inner pundit if you are active in local politics

Party unity is vitally important. Yes, we had joy and good vibes in the Harris campaign. But we also had pundits who persisted in grumbling that Joe should have exited sooner, and we should have had a primary.

In my race, I had Democrats who were very active in county committee work who wrote email messages or on social media that the NY-21 race was un-winnable.

With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Put another way: with Democrats like this, who needs Republicans? We will simply do ourselves in.

When we publicly throw shade on our party’s candidates who are already on the ballot, we are doing that which progressives accuse the rural MAGAs of doing: acting against their best interests.

I have had the task of campaigning for a candidate I was not thrilled about. But this is the nature of political party work. We pull together to advance the work of the party.

Go have coffee with a friend and talk about your wish for a different candidate. Tell it to a spouse. Write it in your diary. But for the sake of party unity — for the sake of winning the race — if you are active in local Democratic activities, don’t fuel the flames of doubt in public once a candidate is actually on the ballot.

Don’t worry — after Election Day you can email, blog and post to your heart’s content. You can even do the all caps thing, “I TOLD YOU SO.” But hold off while the campaign season is in full swing.

It’s all about branding, which Democrats struggle with

I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion that diverges from the party’s choice. Just do so privately if you are active in local party politics. Once you put something in an email to one person, it can go to dozens or hundreds of people faster than you can say the words, “party unity.”

Speaking or writing publicly or on social media about your hesitancy about a nominated candidate would be like a hired sales representative for Coca Cola going on social media and saying, “I’m out here selling Coca Cola, but of course, Pepsi is going to beat us in annual sales.” If you did so, I’m sure your sales manager would have a few choice words for you before showing you out the door, and for good cause.

It’s about brand loyalty. In this case, the “brand” is the candidate. And once the party has a candidate, we need to pull together.

The other party seems to get it. After all, they managed to get behind George Santos. Surely someone in that district grumbled about that choice. But they didn’t do it publicly, that I know of.

Looking ahead in NY-21

We’re coming up on a Special Election in NY-21. The snow is piled high in many parts of the district. It’s cold. And of course, it’s tough to get voters out when there is only one race on the ticket.

I have hired a nationally-proven team to spearhead fundraising, messaging, and compliance.

As soon as I get the nod from the party, I'm rolling out print and digital ads. And as soon as I get the nod from the party leaders, I'm launching a solid ground game.

Together we can — and we will — get not only those raw voter numbers up, but the percentages as well.

We need to do things differently if we expect to get different results.

Our percentage slide since 2018 is due to aggressive gains by MAGA voters in rural areas. Democrats can flip NY-21 by fearlessly reaching out to Democrats, Independents, and Moderate Republicans to ask for their votes. Help register more voters and then get them to show up at the polls.

Unify behind a candidate.

Bottom line: those slumping percentages won’t change a bit if we don’t do something notably different in the upcoming Special Election to fight back against MAGA.

We need help from many hands. Team work makes the dream work.

I hope that you will help by donating (see link below), phonebanking, and, if you are in the district, knocking on doors.

Stay tuned. We’ve got our own project 2025 in upstate New York.

The best is yet to come.

You can donate to Paula Collins for Congress at ActBlue or by sending a check to: Paula Collins for Congress; 441 Old State Road; DeKalb Junction, NY 13630