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This week, Marc Molinaro’s fellow Dutchess County Republican did not mince words as he unpacked the myriad of reasons that Molinaro blew his and Republicans’ shot at the NY-19 special election.
Chief among them: “He had no base.”
Molinaro was and continues to be searingly unpopular on the ground as “the ultimate insider” with no “energy behind him that’s normally on the right.”
While a prize recruit for national Republicans, voters in NY-19 apparently have no interest in “organizing, donating and volunteering for like a guy like Molinaro,” considering “he’s driving around in a $100,000 taxpayer-funded SUV in a slick suit.”
“Republicans clearly aren’t going to let Marc Molinaro forget what a total failure he and his campaign have been,” said DCCC Spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre.
Read more from the Times Union.
Times Union: Marc Molinaro won his own county by just 3 points. Here’s why.
By Roger Hannigan Gilson
8/31/22
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RHINEBECK— In the nationally watched special election between Republican Marc Molinaro and Democrat Pat Ryan, Molinaro won Dutchess County — where he has served as county executive for a decade — by only 773 votes, or about 3 percentage points. By comparison, Ryan won in Ulster County, where he served as county executive until Tuesday, by 24 points.
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State Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor, who represents part of Dutchess County and runs the news site Hudson Power Broker, said he knew why Molinaro lost the election: “He had no base.”
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“Molinaro had none of the energy (behind him) that’s normally on the right,” Lalor said. “The social conservatives aren’t for Molinaro, the Second Amendment people — they might have pulled the lever for him, but they’re not organizing, donating and volunteering for a guy like Molinaro … He’s driving around in a $100,000 taxpayer-funded SUV in a slick suit. He’s not going to relate to the guys at the gun club.”
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Lalor said some political victories “have nothing to do with the candidate,” mentioning the 1994 Gingrich Revolution, when the House of Representatives flipped Republican, or 2006’s Blue Wave. But a one-off election like the contest between Molinaro and Ryan has a different calculus.
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“In a special election, it’s all you,” Lalor said. “And (Molinaro) did not have a base except the local political establishment.”
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“In politics today, it is still right versus left, but it is also very much establishment versus outsiders. Most voters are outsiders. Molinaro has become the ultimate insider,” Lalor said, adding the candidate “doesn’t really stand for anything.”
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Assemblyman Lalor said Molinaro’s reticence about Trump — the county executive had said during his run for governor in 2018 he had not voted for Trump in 2016, instead writing in former U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson — hurt his campaign on both the left and the right. Molinaro was unable to capture the enthusiastic MAGA vote, but Democrats were still able to tie him to the former president.
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“He got all of the negatives of Trump,” Lalor said, “and none of the significant positives.”
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