The freshman Democrat from central New York’s sprawling 22nd congressional district won a tight race last year in a district Donald Trump carried by 15 points in 2016. | Twitter ‘I’m not trying to build a national profile’: Brindisi plays it safe in upstate New York

SHERBURNE — More than 200 miles from the New York City district that catapulted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to progressive superstardom last year, Rep. Anthony Brindisi is straining to hold on to the center.

The freshman Democrat from central New York’s sprawling 22nd congressional district won a tight race last year in a district Donald Trump carried by 15 points in 2016, helping his party reclaim the House. But now he’s doing his best to distance himself from the party’s vocal left, Ocasio-Cortez included, and also from the liberals who control all the levers of power in Albany for the first time in years. It’s a struggle. And Republicans believe the seat can be flipped again next year.


Brindisi's predicament is a reminder that even in liberal bastions like New York, some Democrats are eager to keep it local rather than engage in the issues that animate the party's left wing. That’s why on a recent summer’s evening in this village of a little over 1,000 people 45 minutes west of Cooperstown, Brindisi focused not on the Green New Deal or "Medicare for All," but on a litany of complaints from constituents. They ranged from issues with broadband and cable service providers (too few options, speakers said) to service quality (impeding the ability of their kids to do online schoolwork) to an ongoing dispute between AT&T and media conglomerate Nexstar, which has blacked out a number of local news stations in Central New York.

“It’s very deliberate, because I’m not trying to build a national profile,” Brindisi said in an interview. “It can be challenging sometimes, because being more of a moderate, you will get hit by incoming fire, not only from your left flank, but from the right flank as well."

Brindisi’s victory last year was not seen as a bellwether of shifting local politics, as Ocasio-Cortez’s primary win over longtime incumbent Joe Crowley was, or partly the result of changing demographics, which helped Antonio Delgado unseat John Faso in a Hudson Valley seat. The 40-year-old former state legislator was in the right place at the right time, capitalizing on Republicans' health care foibles and one-term incumbent Claudia Tenney’s penchant for inflammatory and conspiratorial rhetoric, which alienated people in her own party.

Brindisi is well aware of those circumstances, and he's betting that voters will reward his careful centrism in 2020 as he operates far from the spotlight of fellow Democratic newcomers like Ocasio-Cortez, or even Rep. Max Rose of Staten Island, whose media-friendly brashness has elevated him as a counterweight to the insurgent left. He made good on a campaign promise to vote against Nancy Pelosi as House speaker — a high-profile display of independence — and he has brushed aside calls to impeach Trump.

“When I talked to folks in this district who come to town hall meetings, the first issue when they wake up in the morning and think about is not impeachment or the president, it's ‘how am I going to put food on my table today?’” Brindisi said. “Regardless of what the national party does, I know what my message will be. It's continuing to focus on those bread and butter issues that will actually help people in places like upstate New York.”

There's no question that the district favors Republicans. Last year, when Brindisi unseated Tenney by 4,400 votes, the GOP’s sacrificial lamb for governor, Marc Molinaro, won the district over Gov. Andrew Cuomo by 50,000 votes — while Cuomo was on his way to a historic landslide win statewide.

Ideology isn't going to win him many votes in this district. So he keeps the conversation focused on constituent service in hopes that Tip O'Neill's famous dictum about local politics rings true next year, when the rest of the country debates the national and global issues of the Trump era.

Brindisi's town hall in Sherburne came on the heels of an information session at the local library for veterans on recent changes to their private health care options under the 2018 VA Mission Act, which doubled as an informal airing of grievances with the VA and its medical center in Syracuse. It was yet another example of his focus on almost anything but the issues that animate his more-liberal colleagues.

“What I try to stress to the speaker and everyone in leadership is the reason Democrats took the majority in the House of Representatives is not because we unseated other Democrats in primaries, it's because we unseated Republicans in swing districts like NY-22,” he said. “And the policies that should be reflected out of the House of Representatives are the policies that I hear about at these kinds of town hall meetings: infrastructure; health care costs; drug costs. Those are the things people want us focusing on.”

Brindisi's claim to be a different breed of Democrat is borne out by some metrics, such as GovTrak, where he rates firmly near the center and closer to some Republicans than he is to many Democrats. (Other methodologies indicate that Brindisi votes with the president far less than one would expect, based on the district’s 2016 presidential vote.)

Nevertheless, the National Republican Congressional Committee has begun pumping out messages labeling Brindisi a socialist. It's a sampling of what will likely become a deluge of such messages over the next 15 months.

“Once we expose his record, that myth [of Brindisi's centrism] will be exposed a bit,” said Franklin Sager, a high school math teacher running for the Republican nomination. “When you look at the record … he’s going to be seen as a liberal. There’s nothing wrong with that. He’s not a leftist, but he’s a liberal.”

And Brindisi will also have to deal with potential voter backlash against progressive policies implemented by the all-Democratic state Legislature in Albany, including a number of criminal justice reforms and access to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. New York Republicans have seized on these issues in their quest to win back the state Senate next year. The driver’s license measure is unpopular statewide, according to the most recent Siena College poll. Given Trump’s popularity in the district, it’s fair to assume the law is even more unpopular there.

Of course, Brindisi had nothing to do with enacting those policies, but it will further test his mettle as not-your-average Democrat.

"I think Brindisi has done everything that you can right; he doesn’t go after the president, he’s careful with his votes and he’s strategic about his stance with leadership," said a longtime GOP operative familiar with the area. "But he could do all that right and still lose. I think a pet rock could win in a presidential year [for Republicans]."

"The right pet rock," the source added.

Already three Republican candidates have lined up to run against Brindisi: Stephen Cornwell, the Broome County district attorney; George Phillips, who has made three previous unsuccessful runs for the seat; and Sager.

“The bottom line is that the needs of upstate New Yorkers are not being addressed,” Cornwell said. “In Washington it seems like there’s no plan other than reelection. We have real people affected by real problems.”

The field may expand further: Binghamton Mayor Richard David’s name has also come up among Republicans, and Tenney has not ruled out running again.

Brindisi has proven himself to be a capable fundraiser, a must for those running in highly competitive seats. He raised more than $4.6 million during his first congressional campaign, and since coming into office he’s raked in a bit less than $1 million, with more than $770,000 in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

By comparison, Phillips has raised about $111,000 and has less than $54,000 cash on hand, and Sager has spent the entirety of the $3,527 he has raised, as of June 30. (Cornwell announced his candidacy in July and thus has not reported his fundraising numbers to date.)

But unless the GOP coalesces around a single opponent in the coming months the way that Democrats quickly aligned behind Brindisi in 2017, he won’t know his Republican opponent until the results of New York’s primary in June.

So until then, Brindisi is canvassing across a district that spans the entirety of four counties and parts of four others — and extends from the shores of Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border — in an uphill attempt to buck the nationalization of American politics.

“The problem with Washington, as I see it, is elected officials make a lot of commitments on the campaign trail, and then as soon as they get to Washington they backtrack on those commitments.

"That's not something I'll ever do.”