Democrat John Mannion ran for the seat last year after the retirement of longtime occupant John DeFrancisco, a Republican. | Getty Images Mannion will run for Senate again

ALBANY — Democrat John Mannion will make a second bid for a soon-to-be-vacant state Senate seat in the Syracuse area, he told POLITICO.

He will publicly announce his intentions in Syracuse next Wednesday.


“We need a strong representative who’s going to be in Albany and serve out this term and I’m the person, I believe, that should do that,” Mannion said. “Over the past few months, knowing that the seat could be open, I was getting ready and making those connections to make sure we were ready to go, because very quickly we could have a special election.”

Mannion ran for the seat last year after the retirement of longtime occupant John DeFrancisco, a Republican. He is an Advanced Placement biology teacher, and his candidacy had the enthusiastic support of the New York State United Teachers, the state's largest teachers union. His campaign and supporters including the union combined to outspend the efforts on behalf of then-Onondaga County Comptroller Bob Antonacci, $2.3 million to $1.2 million. Antonacci won with 51 percent of the vote to Mannion’s 49.

But now, after Republicans Tarky Lombardi and DeFrancisco held the seat for a combined 53 years, it's about to change hands for the second time in about a year. Antonacci won election to an area judgeship on Tuesday and so will soon resign from the Senate.

“I had never run for anything before, so to run for a seat this big, there was a bit of a learning curve. I had to establish a lot of relationships with people,” Mannion said. “I believe that I already have that support in place. Even after the last election, people immediately reached out to me and said, ‘You’ve got to do this again.’”

He says his experience as a teacher gives him exposure to all of “the issues that face society.”

The seat isn’t expected to be vacant until the new year, and there are no firm plans to hold a special election. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that he would consider calling one once Antonacci’s seat officially opens up.

“For the 290,000 people of the 50th Senate District, it [would ideally] be as soon as possible,” Mannion said of a special. “However, the most logical date is the date of the presidential primary, which would be April 28. Elections can be costly; we don’t want to put any additional costs on the taxpayers of New York.”

There are currently 65,545 Democrats and 62,386 Republicans in the district. Democrats like Hillary Clinton have repeatedly won the district in the past, though it’s by no means solidly blue — Gov. Andrew Cuomo received 49 percent of the two-way vote there in 2018.

The district includes most of Auburn, a sliver of Syracuse, and a number of towns between or close to the two. It was drawn with an Antonacci candidacy in mind: In his recent memoirs, DeFrancisco wrote that he saw Antonacci as a potential successor during the 2012 redistricting, and fought to ensure that his residence was included in the new map.

“If you look at the map of the 50th Senate District, it makes no sense,” Mannion said. “It has little to do with fair representation; it has more to do with political leverage and politics, so the shape of the district is flawed and regardless of what influenced the drawing of that map, the map needs to go.”