Can John Mannion flip a key upstate swing district?

It would be difficult for anyone who watched the congressional debate between Democratic state Sen. John Mannion and Republican Rep. Brandon Williams on Oct. 1 to see Mannion as a Democratic savior. The mild-mannered former teacher cut a nervous figure, puttering over his words, while Williams, a Navy veteran and businessperson who has represented a Central New York congressional district for the past two years, spoke clearly and confidently about his political beliefs and policy aims. But Mannion is who Democrats are banking on to flip the 22nd Congressional District, making him a key part of the party’s strategy to take back control of the House of Representatives.

Mannion does have some things going for him, including the support of the powerful state teachers union, which has backed him throughout his political career. He also benefits from a favorable district map and a reputation as a political moderate, an asset in the Central New York swing district. But his electoral record is mixed, he’s not an especially charismatic campaigner and Republicans are spending millions to tie him to politically unpopular policies approved by the Democratic-controlled state Legislature. No wonder he looked nervous.

Wins and losses

“The scariest thing about John Mannion as our candidate is that when he wins, he doesn’t win on election night,” Onondaga County Democratic Committee Chair Max Ruckdeschel told City & State. “So there’s definitely a history of that.”

So far, Mannion’s political history has been defined by close margins. In his first run for office in 2018, when the state Senate seat opened up for the first time in decades and Democrats surfed a Trump-fueled “blue wave” to the state Senate majority, he lost to Republican Robert Antonacci by less than 2 percentage points. Antonacci left the state Senate a year later to become a judge, and Mannion ran for the seat again in 2020. This time, he was more successful, beating Republican Angi Renna by nearly 5 percentage points, although a COVID-19 outbreak among poll workers meant it was nearly December before he declared victory. And then he won reelection in 2022 by the narrowest of margins, beating Republican challenger Rebecca Shiroff by just 10 votes.

Still, at least Mannion has won elections – which was not the case for the last Democrat to challenge Williams. “This is the first time the Democrats have run an elected official since (former Rep.) Anthony Brindisi,” said Luke Perry, professor of political science at Utica University. Democrat Francis Conole, a first-time candidate, ran in 2022 after redistricting created a new version of the 22nd Congressional District. He narrowly lost to Williams in a race for the open seat, an outcome that Perry attributed to a poor showing in Oneida County. “This is Mannion’s race to lose, provided he doesn’t sleep on Oneida,” Perry said.

Mannion will be aided by a relatively Democratic-friendly district map, which was finally approved in February by state lawmakers (including Mannion) following a tortured legal process. Ruckdeschel said that if the new lines had been in place back in 2022, Conole would’ve beaten Williams. Democrats are bullish about Mannion’s chances this time.

The 22nd Congressional District now consists of Madison and Onondaga counties and parts of Cayuga, Cortland and Oneida counties. Onondaga, the most populous county in the district, is home to Syracuse, where Mannion has a strong base of support. Ruckdeschel said that for Mannion to win the election, he needs to beat Williams by at least 25 points in Onondaga County, while remaining competitive in the more rural parts of the district.

Both candidates have raised millions of dollars, though Mannion is currently trailing Williams in fundraising. Mannion has raised more than $3.2 million and now has about $838,000 cash on hand, while Williams has raised close to $3.7 million and has about $1.4 million cash on hand. Both candidates have received help from outside groups, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spending nearly $800,000 in support of Mannion, but Williams’ war chest still dwarfs his.

Lesson plans

Mannion’s most important asset may be the support of the politically powerful state teachers union, New York State United Teachers, which has been one of his strongest backers throughout his political career. Before running for office, Mannion was teacher and local union chapter president who was involved in the group’s political organizing efforts. He is a graduate of the union’s Pipeline Project, which recruits and trains potential political candidates. “John Mannion is one of our own, and a fierce advocate for educators and unions,” New York State United Teachers President Melinda Person said in a statement. “From his time in union leadership at West Genesee to his work in Albany as a state senator, John has proven he will fight tirelessly to uplift educators, students and communities. We know John will be the powerful voice in Washington for working-class families and strong public schools that Central New York deserves.”

The union was an early and enthusiastic supporter of his candidacy in 2018, pumping close to $500,000 of outside spending into the race in order to bolster Mannion’s ultimately unsuccessful run. It endorsed Mannion again in 2020, spending about $170,000 that year through its independent expenditure committee either in support of Mannion, who was one of a handful of candidates it was supporting that year, or in opposition to his Republican challenger. In 2022, Mannion was the only candidate that the teachers union supported through its super PAC. That year, the union spent most of its money to protect Gov. Kathy Hochul, who faced a strong challenge from then-Rep. Lee Zeldin. But although the union spent nearly $800,000 for Hochul that cycle, it still pumped about $200,000 in independent expenditures into Mannion’s race, which he won by the narrowest of margins.

Historically, the teachers union has focused on state legislative races rather than congressional races. But this year, it launched an expansive canvassing campaign across a variety of districts, including the 22nd Congressional District, in support of candidates who signed their “Common Ground Over Chaos” pledge. Through a federal super PAC, the union has already spent some $2.3 million to support Mannion and four other Democrats running in competitive districts. It’s probably not a coincidence that the union is getting heavily involved in congressional races the same year that Mannion decided to run for Congress.

For all the money that the union has spent on Mannion over the years – and money for ads and billboards is nothing to sneeze at – the manpower that a union like the 600,000-member strong New York State United Teachers can provide may be even more significant. “It’s turnout, it’s the on-the-ground stuff, it’s those old-fashioned networks,” said Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University. “The unions still, they still rely on those at some level, and they’re able to leverage them. So where I think he’s going to get the most help … is getting people to the polls who might not necessarily have been driven there because of the choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.”

All in moderation

For Mannion, the key to winning the 22nd Congressional District, a quintessential swing district, may be emphasizing his relatively moderate politics and willingness to work across the aisle while focusing on the economic development that he’s brought to the region.

“This is the nature of running in Central New York into the Mohawk Valley,” Mannion said. “We are a down-the-middle district. We’re a swing district. Currently, my district, I’ve got 29 out of 33 municipalities run by Republicans, meeting village mayors, city mayors, town supervisors, so I’m working with them. I understand where I live.”

As a state senator, Mannion’s crowning achievement may be his co-sponsorship of the Green CHIPS Act. A state version of the federal CHIPS Act, the 2022 bill opened the door for tech manufacturing investments in New York. Specifically, it led to Micron Technology’s selection of Clay, a suburb of Syracuse, for the site of its new semiconductor manufacturing plant. Syracuse spent decades watching large businesses like the Eastman Kodak Co. and Carrier leave and take large numbers of jobs with them, so the prospect of Micron arriving – even with some pushback over the plant’s effect on the neighboring community – brought hope to the region while giving Mannion a feather in his cap on the campaign trail.

Williams opposed the bill, even calling it “corporate welfare” in a letter to the Syracuse Post-Standard – and Mannion is eager to capitalize on that. “He’s going to take credit for things that he voted against and went out of his way to write a letter to the editor for,” Mannion said. “So I was here during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, we were a manufacturing city and region, and we lost a lot of those jobs in New Venture Gear, at Carrier, at Griffiss Air Base. And we had to pivot. We had to adjust.”

But plenty of the policies coming out of Albany are unpopular in the district, and Republicans have sought to tie Mannion to all of them, especially those related to criminal justice reforms. Although Mannion wasn’t even in office when the state Legislature passed bail reform in 2019, Republicans have made cashless bail a centerpiece of their attacks on the state senator, accusing him and other Democrats of ignoring their constituents’ concerns about public safety.

Still, Mannion has bucked his party in a number of contentious votes, an apparent effort to distance himself from the at times unpopular Democratic rule out of Albany. Just months into office, he was the only Democrat to vote against legislation intended to stop the use of solitary confinement in New York. In 2023, he voted against the Clean Slate Act, a law that seals the criminal records of many people who have not reoffended for a period of time after being incarcerated. Earlier this year, Mannion voted against the NY HEAT Act, a priority for environmental advocates on the left that faces opposition in parts of upstate over its provisions to phase out natural gas for heating.

“He’s going to get Democrats who are disillusioned with Washington and maybe not thrilled with what’s happening with the governor and Albany,” political consultant Jack O’Donnell predicted. “He’s got to get them to the polls. As they turn out, he wins.”

Vulnerable incumbent

This cycle, Williams has been rated as one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents in the country. He defeated Conole, a fellow Navy veteran with a similarly lean political background, in the general election two years ago by just a single percentage point. And the district has become even more Democratic through redistricting since then.

In an interview, Williams described his base as voters across the spectrum of registration and affiliation who have common sense. “I always tell people from the outside that (the election is) going to behave a lot more like the Midwest of the United States than it is like New York City, downstate, Long Island or the Hudson Valley.”

Though Williams often presents himself as a moderate Republican, he is ideologically further to the right than his predecessor, Republican former Rep. John Katko. Williams has called Katko a “RINO,” or a Republican in name only, and won the 2022 GOP primary by running to the right of the county party’s preferred candidate. “Williams was underestimated before, particularly in his 2022 primary victory, and has some personal appeal among independents and moderates,” Perry said, though he added that Williams likely won’t be able to succeed by running the same type of campaign he did last time.

Like all Republican candidates this cycle, Williams is also tied to congressional inaction on the border and the failed Republican budget bill, which is chock full of unpopular funding cuts to education and law enforcement. He has done little to set himself apart from his peers in the House majority, aside from suggesting that he may not forgo pay during a government shutdown. While Republican operatives can try to paint Mannion as just another Albany insider, Democrats can argue that Williams is just another MAGA Republican.

Williams said he is not concerned about Democratic attempts to tie him to former President Donald Trump, since he believes that Central New York voters appreciate the former president’s accomplishments, even if they dislike his rhetoric. “People say that they may not like Donald Trump’s personality, but they remember and like his policies, and so what?” he asked. “What was a strong headwind in 2020 has actually turned into a neutral issue in 2024.”

No charisma, no problem

In the end, Mannion’s Democratic affiliation might be his most important quality. Election handicappers have rated the race as “lean Democrat,” and the outcome of the election will owe less to Mannion’s own strengths and weaknesses as a candidate than to his campaign’s institutional support, the impact of the presidential election and the partisan makeup of the redrawn congressional district.

“We’re getting into really subjective territory here, but no one who I’ve ever talked to about John Mannion says, ‘What a charismatic guy,’” Reeher said, before adding that Williams “is not particularly charismatic either.”

He added on Mannion: “I’m inclined to go with the guy who’s got the support of all the unions and can turn out support when the candidate himself may not be a force to get people excited and energized.”