The Vice Chair of the Clinton County Republican Committee is pushing back against Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and state Senator Dan Stec over what he calls a “bullying campaign” to choose the Assembly candidate for the expected 115th District special election.
On July 29th the Democrat representing the 115th District, D. Billy Jones, announced he was resigning his position at the end of August in order to take a job at Clinton Community College.
A special election is anticipated and the county chairs from the district – Clinton, Franklin and Essex – will choose the nominee to appear on the ballot to fill the seat.
Less than two weeks after Jones’ announcement, on Thursday August 7th, Stefanik endorsed Village of Malone Mayor Andrea Dumas as the GOP Assembly candidate. Dumas said she was pleased to receive the endorsement even though she has not formally announced a campaign. She is seeking the nomination from the three counties’ Republican chairs.
State Senator Dan Stec, a Republican from the 45th District, soon followed Stefanik with his own endorsement of Andrea Dumas. In February 2021 the Adirondack Daily Enterprise reported that Dumas had been hired by Stec to serve as a community liaison.
Five days after her endorsement of Dumas, on August 12th, Stefanik issued a new release calling for the resignation of Clinton County GOP Chair Jerika Manning, claiming Manning was planning to run for the Assembly seat and would “tank the 115th Assembly District for Republicans.” Stefanik also claimed Manning is incompetent and is “hemorrhaging Republican support”.
Manning, who is running for Clinton County Clerk, responded in a statement that Stefanik’s comments are “false and politically motivated statements” and “nothing more than an attempt at election interference.”
The next day Clinton County Republican Committee Vice Chair Jeff Luck issued his own statement supporting Manning. He said county chairs cannot announce a candidate until Assemblyman Jones actually leaves office and that, actually, has not yet happened. He described conversations with Stefanik as increasingly “unprofessional, disrespectful, condescending, threatening, manipulative, vindictive, delusional, and, frankly, untruthful.” He also says Stefanik and Stec are trying to influence the chairs.
“It got really ugly. I was on the phone personally with Miss Stefanik probably five or six times. And the last time we spoke, Jerika was on the phone with me, and it was very ugly, totally unprofessional, condescending, a bunch of untruths,” Luck recalled. “It was just, just beyond believable. It's just not acceptable.”
Former Clinton County Republican Chair Greg Campbell said he had been watching from the sidelines, but became concerned about how the process was unfolding.
“I don't see it as a campaign of intimidation at all. Jerika has basically been doing whatever, interviewing and evaluation of potential candidates on her own. There's been no consulting with other party officials. When the attempts were made to reach out to Jerika regarding it, they were rebuffed. There are other people that should be consulted and included in that process. And that has not been the case,” Campbell said.
But Luck says he and Manning had been working with the other county chairs to interview candidates from across the district.
“The Franklin County chair and Jerika both agreed that Jerika would interview the Clinton County candidates. He would interview the Franklin County candidates because there were a number of people stepping up. Then they would get together and then co-interview whatever the final two or three, assuming there was plenty of time for that. And I had informed Elise that we still have a couple candidates in the wings that we can't announce yet,” Luck said. “So when this announcement by Elise happened on Thursday, which is nine days after Mr. Jones made his announcement, it came without notification to any of the three chairs and surprised everyone.”
Stefanik’s Senior Advisor Alex DeGrasse emailed WAMC noting that Stefanik is working to unify Republicans but Manning is “sowing division”. DeGrasse’s statement claims “Jerika Manning and Jeff Luck colluded without working with the committee members to block certain prospective candidates from coming forward. They smeared a candidate who was a correctional officer and said he would not be considered. They also told multiple interested candidates that Jerika would hand-pick the candidate herself. Jerika Manning then secretly put herself forward as the assembly candidate to Albany Republicans, but she was caught. Then Jerika secretly suggested a placeholder candidate to complete the term so she could run next year.”
DeGrasse however says both Manning and Luck “...must resign in place of steady, proven leadership and there should be a transparent process to select the strongest candidate in the Assembly district.”
Luck for his part says he expected to be attacked and the public needs to know the truth, especially after Stefanik and Stec began a bullying campaign to get the county GOP leaders to concede to their demands.
“Andrea Dumas is an exceptional candidate. And it may have turned out that Andrea would have been the choice of the three county chairs,” Luck said. “They were never given a chance. That's the problem. Especially when at least two other exceptional candidates never had a chance to be presented.”
On Wednesday, Jerika Manning posted on Facebook that an anonymous text message “filled with blatant lies” is being circulated to voters in Clinton County. She states: “I have never sought to run for the 115th Assembly seat. In fact, members of the Assembly approached me about running, and I declined... These lies are being spread by those who want to undermine the lawful, constitutional process for filling a special election vacancy and replace it with insider deals. They know they cannot win on truth, so they are resorting to anonymous attacks and lies. I will not be intimidated...”
Campbell says any claims of intimidation by Congresswoman Stefanik are baseless.
“You know, I've worked with Elise since she first ran in 2014. So I've got a pretty long history with Congresswoman Stefanik. And if somebody like Jerika tries to push her into a corner and tries to embarrass her, which is really I think one of the things that's involved here, yeah, she will come back and confront that. Anybody would,” Campbell noted. “But anyone that spent any time with Elise knows what a very cordial person she is. How easy she is to work with. She's very accommodating. So those accusations are completely baseless.”
Stefanik wrote on Facebook Wednesday that Clinton County town chairs, rather than the GOP party chair, would now make the endorsement: “We successfully ensured that Clinton County would fairly consider Andrea and let town chairs decide rather than the County Chair... Thank you Clinton County members for stopping your Chair from blocking Andrea Dumas...”
Currently Town of Plattsburgh Supervisor Michael Cashman and Bridie Farrell, a former speedskater and an advocate for sexual assault victims, are seeking their party chairs’ nomination.
