Anthony Constantino, the 43-year-old CEO of custom sticker company Sticker Mule, won New York’s 21st Congressional District Republican primary on Tuesday by nearly 18 points. He captured 58.8 percent of the vote against state Assemblyman Robert Smullen, a retired Marine colonel with the backing of the state Republican establishment, according to the official vote totals from Tuesday’s NY-21 primary.
Constantino’s win rested on Trump’s endorsement, a coalition of MAGA validators that included Roger Stone and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and roughly $10 million of his own money. Smullen, who refused to shake Constantino’s hand at their only televised debate, plans to stay on the November ballot through the Conservative Party’s line. Constantino faces a defamation suit from the chairman of that party. The November ballot now has two Republicans and a Democrat, in a district Trump carried by 60 percent in 2024.
Constantino Takes NY-21 by Nearly 18 Points
The 18.2-point margin came in a race that lacked independent public polling. Constantino carried 94 percent of the vote in Oneida County, 85 percent in Schoharie, and 57 percent in Lewis. Smullen held only two of the counties that had reported by Tuesday night: Fulton, by 12 points, and Jefferson, by 17.
- 5,313 votes for Anthony Constantino
- 3,671 votes for Robert Smullen
- 52 write-in ballots
- 9,036 total ballots reported
The Democratic primary on the same ballot was less dramatic. Blake Gendebien, a party-backed candidate, won 66.5 percent of his primary against Stuart Amoriell, drawing 3,894 votes to Amoriell’s 1,939, and the Cook Political Report rates the general election as Solidly Republican.
The Endorsement Stack Behind the Win
Trump’s endorsement of Constantino overruled the formal backing Smullen had received from the New York Republican Committee. Stone, Giuliani, and Elon Musk were soon added to the pro-Constantino coalition. The endorsement list grew week by week. Constantino printed t-shirts touting Trump’s nod, and rally attendees wore them to events.
He had first drawn Stone’s attention, per Politico, by erecting a large “Vote for Trump” sign on a building in Amsterdam, a city less than an hour west of Albany. He later gifted Trump a bronze statue in the president’s likeness. A local minor league team official told the campaign rally crowd that Constantino had helped refurbish the Amsterdam baseball stadium.
Smullen answered Constantino’s MAGA alignment with biographical contrast. He pointed to his own three tours in Afghanistan and a record in the state Assembly that earned him endorsements from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Rifle Association. He called Constantino “mentally unfit” for office and pointed to Constantino’s past enrollment as a Democrat. Constantino hit back with a text message to his rival calling him “an evil person who must be stopped” and a public label, “Slime Bob”.
All my attacks are honest and things that people need to know. President Trump changed a lot of norms. Why don’t you want politicians talking to citizens?
That is Anthony Constantino, the Sticker Mule CEO, told to Politico Magazine at his Amsterdam factory.
$10 Million of His Own Money Against $500,000 in Ads
Constantino poured $10 million of his own money into the race and spent more than $3.8 million on TV ads to saturate the upstate media market. The candidate told outlets the spending was necessary to overcome the formal party machinery that had lined up behind Smullen.
Smullen’s campaign spent more than $500,000 in ad spending, according to the tracking firm AdImpact. Constantino leaned into the gap, displaying what one local outlet called a “marketing flair” by treating the campaign as an extension of his own brand. The sticker company CEO’s ad blitz kept Constantino’s face in front of upstate voters for months.
Why the GOP Cannot Relax for November
The primary is over. The math for November just got harder. Smullen is set to remain on the ballot with the backing of the state Conservative Party’s line. That line has historically delivered tens of thousands of upstate votes to Republican nominees.
Three new complications define the November ballot for House Republicans.
- Constantino is being sued for defamation by Jerry Kassar, the chairman of the state Conservative Party.
- Smullen’s refusal to publicly endorse Constantino leaves the GOP without a united face heading into the fall.
- The district voted 60 percent for Trump in 2024, a margin large enough to absorb intra-party friction, but the Cook Political Report’s Solidly Republican rating does not account for a three-way race.
Republican leaders in Albany told Politico the scenario of Constantino and Smullen both on the ballot “haunts” them. A split conservative vote could open a door for Gendebien in a district where national Democrats have otherwise shown little public interest.
The MAGA Outsider as a District Pattern
The 21st is a textbook Trump district: 60 percent for him in 2024, overwhelmingly white, predominantly blue collar, and weary of both parties. The North Country stretches from the Adirondack Park to the Canadian border, with towns whose economies have thinned for decades as factories close and farms turn to solar.
Aaron Wolf, a 2014 Democratic House candidate who lost to Stefanik, told Politico the region runs on a don’t-tread-on-me ethos that often treats outsiders with more suspicion than Democrats. Constantino, who lives and works in Amsterdam, ran on local roots. His politics read as borrowed wholesale from the MAGA template. He recorded rap videos targeting Democratic mayors, gifted Trump a bronze statue, and answered immigration questions at rallies with boxing metaphors.
The Trump endorsement and the $10 million self-funding gave Constantino a template that did not depend on the local party. Spencer Pratt, a reality TV star backed by Trump, attempted the same MAGA-only playbook in deep-blue Los Angeles this spring and lost his mayoral bid, per Politico. The 21st was supposed to be the kind of place where the playbook would actually work, and on Tuesday it did.
Local Republican leaders told Politico they remain “shell-shocked” by the race and unsure what to make of Constantino’s combative campaign. The party’s formal committee endorsement of Smullen did not save him.
The Seat Stefanik Built and Walked Away From
Stefanik had represented versions of the district for more than a decade. She rose from a Paul Ryan aide to House Republican leadership. Trump had nominated her as United Nations ambassador before withdrawing the nomination amid concerns her House vacancy would shrink the GOP’s already-narrow majority, per reporting on why Trump’s UN nomination of Stefanik was withdrawn.
She launched a long-anticipated run for governor in late 2025, dropped it weeks later, and announced she would not seek re-election to Congress. Stefanik did not endorse in the primary to replace her. Her silence left both candidates without the one endorsement that might have settled the race earlier, Republican leaders told Politico.
