Utica, N.Y. - With just over four weeks to go before election day, the three candidates in the 22nd Congressional District race are gearing up for four weeks of intense campaigning, but they may all be taking different routes to get to the finish line.
The three candidates are incumbent Democrat Anthony Brindisi of Utica, former 22nd Congressional District Representative Republican Claudia Tenney of New Hartford and Libertarian Party candidate Keith Price of Apalachin, which is outside of Binghamton.
During this last month before an election, you usually see plenty of candidates going door-to-door, but maybe not as much this year.
Rep. Brindisi says he will not be knocking on doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, "We have to do what we feel is comfortable. I don’t think will be going door-to-door during the middle of a pandemic but certainly doing literature drops, I think they’re ok to avoid more of the face-to-face contact."
Tenney says she is going door-to-door and will continue to do so, "I am going door-to-door and so is our team, we are very careful, we have masks, we have hand sanitizer, we stay obviously a very social distance away from our constituents but we want to get our message out because it is really challenging and it’s environment."
Price says he's not sure yet, "I do a lot more of this, a lot more zoom, a lot more online, I do a lot of conference calls, a lot of socially distanced events."
Price says COVID has changed this year's election in many ways and continues to do so, "It's changed how we have raised money, it’s changed how we’ve talked to the media, but the bottom line is if you have the drive and desire to get out there, you’ll find a way to do it, intelligently and safely and to do it with social distancing in mind."
Each candidate says they will attend events as they come up, as did Tenney on Sunday handing out chicken barbecue dinners at the Herkimer County Republican Committee chicken barbecue fundraiser at the Herkimer VFW.
Brindisi says a main portion of his campaign continues to be hitting the phones and calling registered voters, "We’ve been focusing more on phone banking, doing stuff digitally. This weekend we will surpass 200,000 calls that we have made for our campaign."
Tenney says there are undecided voters out there and there is time to sway them in your campaign's direction, "I think there are undecided’s out there and we’re going to work every day to get them."
Price says he is hoping those undecided voters turn to him. He believes third party candidates get a good share of those votes, but not from the far left or the far right, "It'll be right in the middle where we make most of our gains, but some people will tell you you only take votes from Republicans, you only take votes from Democrats, the reality is we suck up those middle votes and a lot of the undecided's."
