Anthony Frascone, speaking with members of the NYWFP outside of his home. Photo from WFP video
“My Platform is Jesus Christ”
By Dan Murphy
Correction: In a prior story on the race for Congress in NY-17 and WFP Candidate Anthony Frascone, we incorrectly posted a photo of a person who is not the same Anthony Frascone running for Congress. We removed the photo and did not include it in our print edition once we were contacted by A. Frascone, and we apologize for this error.
On Oct. 21, the New York Working Families Party paid a visit to Rockland County home of Anthony Frascone, the WFP candidate for Congress in NY-17, in one of the most watched and contested congressional races in the country, between Congressman Mike Lawler and former Congressman Mondaire Jones.
Frascone collected signatures and appeared on the WFP ballot for a June primary against Mondaire Jones. Frascone beat Jones in the primary, 287-197.
When they knocked on his door, Anthony Frascone opened and conversed with the leaders of the NYWFP. While Frascone’s answers were not satisfactory to the NYWFP, we found him to be a normal suburban voter and candidate.
He was friendly and shook all of their hands and was smiling to the cameraperson, who was recording the entire incident. Frascone, could have declined to be interviewed or filmed and could have simply closed the door. But he engaged politely is a brief political conversation.
Specifically, here is the Q&A between Frascone and the members of the NYWFP.
Q-Hello, I wanted to learn more about your platform.
My platform is Jesus Christ. I want to serve the people in holiness truth, and honesty because, in this world, everybody needs help, including me.
Q-Honesty-WOW
A-We are in a fallen and broken world. And we need the presence of God
Q-We heard that you used to be a registered Republican, and then you switched to the Working Families Party. So tell us, what about the Working Families Party values that attracted you, and what do you want to do to win this election?
A-My election is based on serving each other.
Q-How come we haven’t found any information on you online? People want to know that you’re on the ballot line.
A-The finance is very hard to do all of that. I’m not raising money; I’m doing everything myself.
Do you support taxing the rich? That is one issue that we really care about.
A-I support that everyone should pay their fair share, no matter what level you are on. God has given everyone the ability.
Q-Interrupting-But you are running on the Working Families Party line
A-If you ask a question you have to allow the person to answer. Everybody has the ability to pay their fair share, so we can help people who don’t have it.
We have to come to this country legally, according to the Constitution, and that’s all I’ll say. I have to go.
Q-We want to have a real conversation with you. This is not a joke. This is a real election with real consequences for the country. You chose to launch a campaign for a party in the state of New York, presumably with the intention of representing the people of this district, but you have done absolutely nothing to make the case, to talk to people, to actually reach voters. And you know that the role that you are playing is to spoil the election in one of the tightest districts in the country. So, we want to understand what your intentions really are.
A-You are completely incorrect. My intention is to spread the love of God through the way the gospel teaches me and to show them how much I love each other. I won’t speak anymore, you are being very forceful with me. No more questions, I support Jesus Christ.
Watch the entire video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MliTRGey_CE
After the home visit, the WFP issued a press release which included:
“The WFP line is how progressive New Yorkers vote their values —that’s why our vote totals have exploded across the state since the rise of the MAGA threat, including in CD-17. Dirty tricks like the one pulled by Lawler and Frascone do deep harm to voters’ trust in our democracy,” said Ana María Archila Co-Director of New York Working Families Party. “That’s why WFP is encouraging voters to vote up and down the Democratic line in this congressional district.”
“Nobody knows who the candidate is who is on the Working Families Party line, and that is a cheap trick to confuse the voters. Anything that is being done to confuse voters or make it harder to actually vote your values and your beliefs is not pro-democracy. We need pro-democracy candidates and that’s why we need Mondaire Jones to win CD-17,” said Assemblymember Dana Levenberg.
“Anthony Frascone is a fake candidate who is NOT trying to win the seat he is on the ballot for. He has no campaign staff and no campaign volunteers. You will see not a single lawn sign for him in this district. He has not raised a cent for this campaign, and he has not spent a cent for this campaign. Because he does not want to win,” said Jennifer Cabrera, NYWFP Westchester-Putnam Chapter Chair. “That is voter disenfranchisement. We will not stand for it. Voters deserve to know that the people on the ballot are all people who actually want to do the job of representing them. They deserve to know that the winners of elections have won honestly, not through deceit.”
Last week, NYS Supreme Court Judge Janet Malone dismissed a lawsuit filed by several democrats and WFP voters in the district who sought to have Frascone removed from the ballot.
Mail in ballots have already been mailed to thousands of voters with Frascone’s name on it. But the legal argument, that Frascone misdemeanor conviction, and the fact that he was a “subversive” candidate, did not win the day as Judge Malone rejected the suit and kept Frascone on the ballot.
A recent Emerson Poll has the race for Congress in NY-17 at 45% for Lawler, 44% for Jones, and 3% for Frascone.
Less than 1,900 voters in the district are registered WFP. In 2022, 8,300 votes were cast on the WFP line for Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, who lost to Lawler by 1820 votes, out of 285,280 votes cast.
Our friends in the media, and political observers who watched the video, were favorable and sympathetic to Frascone. “He seems like a nice guy. They crashed his home, and he stood there and took their questions. They didn’t like the answers, but isn’t politics, especially today. Don’t answer-but spin?”
Another said, “Anthony Frascone is a good person. And what you saw is genuine. He has a heart of gold.”
Another one of the legal arguments in court was that Frascone should be removed from the ballot because he was a convicted felon. That is not true, he was convicted of a misdemeanor.
Frascone was also registered to the WFP for more than 10 years. He is entitled to collect signatures and run in a WFP primary.
Much of this is inside politics. How many people now know who Anthony Frascone is?
Frascone is polling at 3%. Included in that number are a few WFP members still pissed at Mondaire for supporting Latimer over Bowman. But that number is dwindling, as the WFP is doing a very good job of educating their voters not to vote for Frascone on their line, but to vote for Jones on the democratic line.
For those who will still vote for Frascone and the WFP on Nov. 5, he is an unknown and a protest vote against both parties. Can Frascone still get 5,000 votes on the WFP line on Nov. 5? And will the outcome be that close between Lawler and Jones?
