By AC Powell
Former One-Term Congressman Looking to Run in Third District in 4 Years
Former Congressman Marc Molinaro is reportedly exploring yet another run for Congress, this time in New York’s 21st Congressional District. If he follows through, it would mark Molinaro’s third attempt to secure a House seat across multiple districts in just a few election cycles, a political journey that increasingly raises questions about durability, direction, and authenticity.
Molinaro’s recent congressional history is not a straight line. Before winning a seat in Washington, he ran in the 2022 special election in New York’s 18th District and lost. He later won election in 2022 in New York’s 19th District, served a single term, and then lost his reelection bid in 2024 to Democrat Josh Riley. Now, with NY-19 no longer an option, Molinaro appears to be looking north to NY-21, which would once again require a move into a new district. After NY-18, NY-19, and now potentially NY-21, critics are likely to revive accusations of political carpetbagging rather than local representation.
Geography, however, may not be Molinaro’s biggest problem.
Molinaro carries a long-documented record of distancing himself from Donald Trump when it mattered most. During his 2018 campaign for governor, Molinaro publicly and repeatedly stated that he did not vote for Trump in 2016, instead writing in former Congressman Chris Gibson. He made that admission again on April 2, 2018, the very day he launched his gubernatorial campaign. Gotham Gazette documented those statements in detail, and Politico at the time described Molinaro as one of the state’s most prominent Republicans openly explaining why he refused to back Trump.
New York’s 21st Congressional District, a district Trump won by roughly 20 points in the 2024 presidential election, is not a place where Republican primary voters reward candidates for past resistance to Trump. It is a district where loyalty to Trump is often treated as a baseline qualification, not an optional accessory. Any Molinaro bid would almost certainly reopen the Trump question, and unlike past races, it would be central rather than peripheral.
That challenge becomes even sharper when considering the primary field Molinaro would be entering. The competition in NY-21 is shaping up as a contest over who most convincingly embodies Trump-style politics. Assemblyman Robert Smullen, a never-Trumper himself, is now frantically trying to course correct with efforts to align himself firmly with the former president, promoting his status as a Trump appointee and emphasizing shared priorities. Smullen’s strategy appears designed to trick voters into forgetting about his past positioning.
Anthony Constantino, by contrast, has built an entire political identity around unapologetic support for Trump. Constantino first drew statewide and national attention after erecting a massive illuminated “Vote for Trump” sign atop his Sticker Mule manufacturing facility in Amsterdam. The sign became the subject of legal challenges, which Constantino ultimately won, and it remains visible still today to motorists traveling the New York State Thruway. His pro-Trump activism did not stop there. Constantino later commissioned a seven-foot bronze statue of Trump and personally presented it to the former president. The President proudly displays the statue at Mar-A-Lago.
Against that backdrop, Molinaro’s past statements about not voting for Trump are unlikely to be treated as a footnote from his past and will become an insurmountable liability.
Molinaro would also be challenging in a district currently held by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, one of Trump’s closest allies in the House and a national figure within the Republican Party. Her strong ties to Trump only strengthen the MAGA hold on this district making it harder for any candidacy from a never-Trumper.
While Molinaro may see NY-21 as an opportunity because it is safely Republican in general elections, the general election is not the hurdle. The hurdle is a Republican primary electorate that is deeply Trump-aligned, highly skeptical of flip-floppers, and presented with alternatives whose Trump credentials are far less complicated.
In a district Trump won by 20 points and that is currently represented by one of his most loyal allies in Congress, Marc Molinaro would be running uphill from the start. Reinvention is possible in politics, but in Trump country, memory matters, and voters tend to remember who stood with Trump and who wrote someone else in.
