The Republican Party chairs have not yet announced a candidate. Up until now, leadership from both parties have said they were planning on waiting until Stefanik resigned to select candidates.

Gendebien is campaigning on lowering costs, securing the country’s borders and fighting against government over-regulation.

Stefanik has been nominated to be recently re-elected President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. If she is confirmed by the Senate, she would need to resign from her NY-21 House seat. This would kick off the special election to replace her.

Stefanik has not yet been confirmed, and a date hasn’t been set for a vote on her appointment.

A special election is not run like a normal election. Instead of primaries — where members of each party vote on who will represent their party on the ballot — the candidates are selected by the 15 county party chairs in the district.

Essentially, its a primary with only 15 voters.

The party chairs’ votes are weighted by the number of party members in their county.

At least 10 Democrats and between 10 to 20 Republicans threw their names into consideration for nomination.

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Dems back Gendebien

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On Tuesday, the 15 Democratic chairs put out a statement naming Gendebien as the candidate they will nominate “when and if a special election is called.” They are endorsing him because they believe he will bring an “authentic voice.”

Gendebien has had strong fundraising since starting his campaign in mid-December, a quality some party chairs previously told the Enterprise was an important factor in their decision.

“Blake will fight to lower costs and secure our borders,” the Democratic chairs said. “An outsider to the political arena, Blake Gendebien embodies the voice and grit that distinguishes this district.”

Gendebien owns Twin Mill Farms in Lisbon where he owns 500 dairy cows.

His refrain has been: “Send a farmer to D.C.”

Gendebien said in a statement that he was “honored and deeply grateful” to the chairs, adding that “they have run a thoughtful process that has brought out the best in each of us at a particularly challenging time.”

In an interview with the Enterprise in January, Gendebien said he’s wanted to run for Congress for a long time, but was choosing to wait until his kids were out of school. When the special election potential was announced, he asked his youngest son — who is a senior in high school — for his blessing to run, and got it.

He said not having ties to Albany or Washington is a good thing and no one will tell him how to vote.

“I feel like we’ve been let down over the years,” he said, saying legislation that could help the North Country has been caught up in political gridlock and jockeying for power.

“A lot of people say they were born and raised in the North Country,” Gendebien said, adding that he can actually claim that statement.

Gendebien said he sees things in terms of “work horses” and “show horses,” identifying himself as a work horse. He said he’s focused and gets things done one thing at a time.

“I care immensely about people who voted for Donald Trump. I care about their needs,” Gendebien said.

He added that when people slide off 5 Mile Line Road, where his farm is, it doesn’t matter what party he or they belong to — only that he tows them out with his tractor.

Gendebien was elected three times to the Lisbon Central School District board, including as president. He resigned to coach school basketball, since he couldn’t do both at once. Gendebien is proud of his time coaching and loved it. But, he had to leave that, too, after he was elected by 450 farmers in New York and New England to be the vice-chair of the billion-dollar Agri-Mark Dairy Cooperative.

In this role, he testified to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on topics like federal milk marketing order reform and mental health needs of farmers.

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Republican response

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State Republican Party Chair Ed Cox responded to the news quickly, calling Gendebien “far-left” and said Republicans are “thrilled” by the Democrats selecting him.

Stefanik followed up with her own statement, referencing Cox’s statement and including many of the same bullet points.

Cox said Democrats “didn’t do their homework” when they selected him, linking to statement’s he’s made in the past. Cox linked to clips from a 2013 interview Gendebien did with the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture’s “Dairy Farm Workers in New York’s North Country” project, presenting some of them out-of-context.

Cox said Gendebien “bailed out illegals from ICE.”

One of the clips from the 2013 interview has audio of Gendebien detailing a time he bailed out a detained worker for $10,000 so Gendebien could spend his anniversary and Christmas with his family and not have to work on the farm.

Cox said Gendebien “viciously claimed that local correctional officers ‘don’t have much self-worth.'”

In the 2013 interview, Gendebien said, “They don’t have much self-worth in their jobs as corrections officers, so they’ll work extra time and get maybe three, four weeks vacation and in that vacation, they will do things — plumbing or electrician work — just so they feel some self-worth.”

Cox said Gendebien “disparaged local North Country children as not having ‘practical independence and an ability to think.'”

In the interview, Gendebein talked about Hispanic children being capable and having practical knowledge, adding that local kids don’t have the practical independence and ability to think like the Hispanic children do.

Cox said Gendebien “castigated hardworking North Country workers as ‘awful’ people who ‘drank too much.'”

In the interview Gendebien said it is hard to find local workers without domestic abuse, alcohol or wage garnishment problems and complained about how they show up late because they drink too much, or that he gets constant calls from courts about how they need to appear for custody and child support battles. He said it is hard to find a local labor force, so he uses immigrant labor, and that employees had asked him to lie about how much they earn.

Cox also said Gendebien “supported Joe Biden’s open border policies.”

“This radical Far Left Democrat is a longtime major donor and groupie of leftist, gun-grabbing, Taxin’ Tedra Cobb, a supporter of Kathy Hochul, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and a public supporter of Biden’s inflation policies, which devastated NY21 families,” Cox said.

“I take it as a badge of honor to be attacked by career politicians because they know I’ll be an independent voice for the North Country,” Gendebien said in a statement responding to Cox’s statement.

“We’ve heard rumors about who the Republicans are considering nominating, and there couldn’t be a sharper contrast in the upcoming special election,” Gendebien Campaign Manager Emily Goldson said in the campaign’s initial release. “Most are career politicians who have no idea how to deliver on lower prices, lower taxes and securing our border. No matter who their nominee is, we have the team, resources and message to win this race.”

“Republicans will easily hold this seat in the upcoming special election, because the North Country is unquestionably Trump Country,” Cox said.

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Issues

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Gendebien’s “key issue” is access to health care — both physically and financially.

“If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything,” he said.

“If you want to talk about controlling costs, send a farmer to D.C.,” he said. “Farmers know how to control costs.”

Gendebien supports immigration reform. As a farmer, he uses immigrant and migrant labor and speaks Spanish because of his work. He believes America’s farmers are the best in the world, but said they can’t do it alone.

He said he will push to “secure the border” and reform visa programs. Gendebien said the U.S. has “inadequate” visa programs, especially for dairy farmers like himself.

He said politicians have used immigration as a tool to divide people, but believes there is bipartisan support for farmers’ access to employees. This is all connected to economics, he said.

“A farmer needs to be in the discussion on immigration reform,” Gendebien said. “If you want food to get expensive on the dinner table, make sure farmers don’t have a secure workforce and start importing food.”

He said he’s “tuned in” to food inflation — that’s his wheelhouse.

He said he’ll support legislation to control the price of food, fuel, energy, health care, housing and to “hold the line on our tax burdens.”

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Fundraising

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Gendebien started fundraising for his campaign in mid-December. Though the special election has not started yet, he has been using a campaign account for the 2026 mid-term elections, which he said he planned to run in anyway. When the special election fundraising category is created, he’ll shift his donations over to the new election cycle.

His campaign saw a rapid response. From Dec. 9 to 31, data from the Federal Election Commission shows he raised nearly $267,000. His campaign boasts more than $700,000 raised from more than 20,000 individual donors now, though those figures cannot be verified by FEC data yet.

Gendebien said he raised $100,000 in the first 24 hours of his campaign taking donations, and gathered more money than any NY-21 Democrat in history in the first seven days, he said. He said these donations came from all 50 states.

He chalks this up to his message resonating with voters.

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Other election details

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State Democratic legislators are recently considering delaying the impending special election. To read more about this, go to tinyurl.com/2u5n332s.

After Stefanik submits her resignation, current election law dictates that Gov. Kathy Hochul will have 10 days to issue a proclamation calling for a special election. Then, the election must be held within 70 to 80 days of the proclamation. Major party nominations must be made within 10 days of Hochul announcing the election. Independent candidates would have 12 days to collect signatures to be nominated.

Last week, Stefanik gathered bipartisan votes from the 22-member Senate Foreign Relations Committee to advance her nomination out of committee and into a vote by the full Senate. The date and time of this vote were not set by publication of this article, but her appointment has been added to the Senate executive calendar.

To read more about how committee members voted, go to tinyurl.com/y3j7h8ju.

With the House having a narrow Republican majority after the last election, this race could also attract national attention for its importance for both parties.