WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Republican Party leaders across New York\u2019s 21st Congressional District are uniting behind Anthony Constantino after his primary victory over Assemblyman Robert Smullen.<\/p>\n
Several party leaders who had not supported Constantino during the primary are now signaling they will back him heading into the general election.<\/p>\n
Don Coon, chairperson of the Jefferson County Republican Committee, said Smullen made his case for the endorsement at a local meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came to our meeting and he spoke to the group. He made a good case for his candidacy. Mr. Constantino wasn\u2019t there for whatever reason,\u201d Coon said.<\/p>\n
Michael Young, chairperson of the Lewis County Republican Committee, said his committee endorsed Smullen.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the only one who approached us. I did reach out to Mr. Constantino\u2019s campaign. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t connect,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n
When Constantino attended a St. Lawrence County Republican Committee meeting earlier in the campaign, officials said he repeatedly interrupted Smullen\u2019s speech and had to be escorted out. Constantino did not receive an endorsement there.<\/p>\n
GOP leaders say party will back primary winner<\/p>\n
Local GOP leaders said they want to avoid a divided Republican Party in the fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cConstantino is our candidate. The Republican voters decided that. That\u2019s the poll that matters and we\u2019re going forward with Mr. Constantino as our candidate,\u201d Coon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepublican voters told us last night who they want to represent them in Congress. The St. Lawrence Republican County committee will be supporting Anthony Constantino going forward,\u201d Nancy Martin, chairperson of the St. Lawrence County Republican Committee, said.<\/p>\n
The state GOP chair also backed Constantino, saying in a statement that the party looks forward to working together to send Constantino to Congress.<\/p>\n
Smullen could remain on ballot on Conservative line<\/p>\n
Smullen could stay on the November ballot on the Conservative Party line. Smullen said Tuesday he will decide what his path forward is.<\/p>\n
Local Republican leaders said they hope Smullen does not stay on the ballot on that line, saying it could split the vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not advantageous to us and to our having a Republican in the office,\u201d Coon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he chooses to run, it will make it more difficult,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n
After the results showed Constantino as the winner, Rep. Elise Stefanik also backed him. Prior to that, Stefanik had not publicly endorsed either candidate.<\/p>\n
Constantino will face Democrat Blake Gendebien at the polls in November.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WWNY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Republican Party leaders across New York\u2019s 21st Congressional District are uniting behind Anthony…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":890359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,191046,2072,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5620,81283,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-890358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-anthony-constantino","tag-behind","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-republicans","tag-unite","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116807357866545943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}