On the Thursday before Easter, Juanita Perez Williams showed up at Laci's Tapas Bar in Syracuse at a fundraiser for Democratic congressional candidate Dana Balter.

Perez Williams said she donated $250 to Balter at the event because she wanted to support the candidate that Democrats viewed as having the best chance of defeating Republican U.S. Rep. John Katko in November.

But three days later, on Easter Sunday, Perez Williams changed her mind and decided she would enter the race and challenge Balter in a Democratic primary.

Perez Williams said her decision -- less than two weeks before the deadline to file petitions to get on the June 26 ballot -- was influenced by a political mentor she would not identify and a belief that Balter failed to raise enough money and attention to compete against Katko.

In an interview with syracuse.com, Perez Williams said she was disappointed that Balter's campaign had not gained traction with national Democratic leaders and donors, and that it appeared Democrats were conceding defeat to Katko.

Katko began the year with more than $1 million in cash on hand for his campaign, compared to $46,626 for Balter, who struggled to raise money before her designation as the Democratic candidate.

"I've been supporting her," Perez Williams said of Balter. "I think she is just brilliant and a superb person. But at the end of the day the race was not getting attention at the national level. We need the national endorsements and the funding, and that should be happening now."

She added, "My concern is that people had already moved on. There was this sense that we don't have the ability to beat John Katko."

Fueling a backlash

The harsh assessment and decision by Perez Williams set off a firestorm among grassroots Democratic groups and party activists in Central New York who support Balter and view the challenge by Perez Williams as a betrayal.

Perez Williams, 54, won an insurgent campaign for Syracuse's Democratic mayoral nomination last year, but lost the general election in November to independent Ben Walsh.

Balter, 42, a Syracuse University professor, volunteered for the Perez Williams campaign and helped energize Democrats to support a candidate who had defied the party establishment.

Perez Williams returned the favor Nov. 18 when she made her first public appearance after the mayoral campaign at an event to support Balter. The meet-and-greet was held at the home of Syracuse Democratic activist Jonah Minkoff-Zern.

Minkoff-Zern said in an interview Monday that he had hoped "Juanita would stand behind Dana the way Dana stood behind her."

It appeared that was the case in January, when Perez Williams told syracuse.com that she rejected efforts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C., to recruit her to run against Katko, R-Camillus.

The DCCC, the campaign arm of House Democrats, views New York as one of the key battleground states in its effort to flip enough Republican seats to gain control of the House in the November election. The committee spent about $2 million in a failed effort to unseat Katko in the 2016 election.

Balter, making her first run for public office, defeated three other challengers to win the Democratic Party designation in February from county committees in the 24th Congressional District.

But now with Perez Williams' late entry into the race, Minkoff-Zern and Democratic Party chairs in the four-county district blame the DCCC for interfering in local politics.

"I think the DCCC is undermining the will of the people here," Minkoff-Zern said. "We as a community have been through a process to determine who the best candidate is. Had Juanita wanted to participate in that process it would have been fantastic, but she didn't, and we've chosen Dana. So, it's time for us to move forward with Dana."

DCCC officials have not acknowledged recruiting Perez Williams, and party officials did not respond Monday to requests for comment.

Thomas Keck, a Democratic activist from Syracuse, is among members of Balter's liberal base outraged by what they view as the latest example of meddling by the national party to undermine grassroots candidates in favor of those who have ties to the party's establishment.

Keck said it's also upsetting to him that Perez Williams would challenge a loyal ally.

"All of those things together have really touched a nerve with people," Keck said. "I'm not speaking for the campaign, but lots of people know that Dana campaigned hard for Juanita, so that kind of rubs people the wrong way."

Balter did not return messages asking for comment.

Prepared to take the heat

Perez Williams said she expected the backlash from Balter's supporters, but believes her attempt to force a primary election will ultimately help Democrats to spread their message in the effort to unseat Katko.

"As a good Democrat, I supported the designee," Perez Williams said. "But it got to the point that I just couldn't sit on the sidelines anymore. It was my decision to make and I knew that there would be some strong feedback."

Perez Williams said after her initial decision against running for Congress, she started a new job in February as an advocate for injured workers with the New York State Workers' Compensation Board.

She had to resign the state job last week before declaring as a candidate for Congress. She filed a statement of candidacy on Friday with the Federal Election Commission.

Perez Williams said she was ultimately swayed by strangers she met in public who encouraged her to challenge Katko, and by "an elected female official that I look up to...who said to me, 'We can't concede at this point.' We need to put Central New York on the map in this race."

Perez Williams declined to identify the elected official or national Democratic groups she met with before making her decision. She also declined to say what role, if any, the DCCC is playing in her campaign.

But the former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and JAG officer said she called Balter last week before publicly announcing her candidacy.

Fighting for a spot on the ballot

Perez Williams said she knows it will be difficult to make it onto the Democratic ballot. To succeed, she will have to gather at least 1,250 valid signatures from registered Democrats before a deadline at 5 p.m. Thursday for petitions to be filed with the state Board of Elections in Albany.

"I just want people to know this is not an easy task," she said. "I know the odds are not with me at this point, and time is of the essence."

About 20 volunteers who worked on her mayoral campaign began circulating petitions for her campaign on Wednesday, Perez Williams said, adding that she is not employing paid canvassers.

One challenge is to find Democrats who have not already signed petitions for Balter, making signatures for any other candidate invalid.

"It's still a battle," Perez Williams said. "Whether we can get past the (1,250) threshold, we'll see. There are places in the district that Balter's camp didn't hit. People have called me to say, 'Nobody has been on our street, and nobody has been in our building.'"

Balter plans to announce today that she has collected 8,000 petition signatures from more than 800 volunteers, giving her a big cushion to meet the threshold of 1,250 valid signatures.

Dustin Czarny, one of the two elections commissioner for the Onondaga County Board of Elections, said 8,000 signatures would rank as one of the largest petition submissions he has seen from a candidate in his 25 years in politics.

By comparison, two-term incumbent Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from the North Country, boasted Monday that she had about 6,400 signatures from GOP voters on petitions her campaign filed with the state Board of Elections.

Perez Williams, asked when she plans to submit her petitions, said she will likely come close to the 5 p.m. Thursday deadline to submit the petitions in Albany.

"I suspect we'll be racing down the Thruway to get them in," she said.

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