The Working Families Party Disavows Its District 17 Candidate

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Working Families Party officials at a Tarrytown press conference to spread the word not to vote for their District 17 candidate

October 22, 2024

By Barrett Seaman–

You can’t, as they say, make this stuff up.

In the days leading up to the June 25^th New York State primary, some 200 voters, many of them former Republicans with no prior affiliation with the Working Families Party, registered just in time to vote in one Anthony Frascone as the WFP’s candidate for Congress in District 17.

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Frascone himself had been registered for more than 20 years as a Republican, according to WFP officials. Armed with placards and visual evidence of political chicanery, they held a press conference Monday morning in Tarrytown to spread the word that Frascone is “a fake candidate…a MAGA plant of Mike Lawler, trying to use the WFP to siphon votes away from Mondaire Jones and help Lawler win the election with dirty tricks.”

The Hudson Independent has asked the Lawler campaign for a response but as of this writing has not had a reply. If and when one comes, it will be included in this story.

Previously unknown in political circles, Frascone is a construction contractor from Congers in Rockland County. He last garnered attention in 2022 when he was charged with embezzling $2 million in compensation benefit premiums from two insurance companies. That case was apparently settled, though it was noted at the press conference that Frascone’s defense attorney was “none of other than Lawrence Garvey, the head of the Republican Party in Rockland County” and a Lawler supporter.

According to these officials, Frascone never sought the endorsement of the WFP and since being declared the party’s candidate for Congress has shown no sign of having a campaign agenda, nor a staff, nor volunteers and, as Jennifer Cabrera, chair of the Westchester/Putnam County WFP chapter, charged, “has not raised a cent for his campaign and he has not spent a cent for his campaign.”

But the Lawler campaign has, as is evidenced on the party web site in fulfillment of a state election law requiring campaigns to divulge where their money comes from and is spent. In small but clear lettering, the page recruiting new WFP registrants on behalf of Frascone revealed that it was “paid for by Lawler for Congress Inc..”

A screen grab of the web page revealing that the Lawler campaign paid for Francone’s voter recruitment.

Late last week, a judge ruled that despite the questionable ethics of the strategy Frascone must stay on the ballot. As Dana Levenberg, Democratic State Assembly member from Ossining and herself a legitimate WFP-endorsed candidate, acknowledged, what the Lawler campaign did “was legal.” State law does not allow parties to unilaterally remove candidates. Moreover, the Frascone gambit was not discovered in time to mount a counter campaign by legitimate WFP members, unaccustomed as they are with participating in primaries.

Adding to the confusion was the very public rift between the WPF and Mondaire Jones, the Democrat on the primary ballot, who had taken the highly controversial step of injecting himself into the primary battle in neighboring District 16 between County Executive George Latimer and incumbent Congressman Jamaal Bowman, a WFP-endorsed candidate. In a district where Jewish voters make up nearly a fifth of the electorate, Jones wanted to disassociate himself from Bowman’s outspoken support for the Palestinian cause. Little wonder that WFP partisans were confused when their party leaders rushed in at the last minute on behalf of Mondaire Jones.

Now, the WFP is all in for Mondaire and taking the unusual step of urging party members in District 17 not to vote the WFP line and instead follow the advice of Assemblywoman Levenberg and “vote Row A (the Democrats’ line on the ballot) all the way.”

In 2022, Lawler beat Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney by less than a percentage point, and recent polls show his lead over Mondaire Jones is in that same range. If that’s the case on November 5, a few hundred purloined votes by Anthony Frascone could mean the difference between a House of Representatives controlled by Republicans and one back in the hands of Democrats.

* * *

Early Monday morning, prior to the WFP press conference, a delegation of party officers went to the home of Anthony Frascone in Congers to inquire about his candidacy. A bearded gentleman greeted them at the door and responded to their questions, though clearly not to their satisfaction. “My platform is Jesus Christ,” he told them. “My intention is to spread the love of God.” He confirmed that he has neither raised nor spent money for his candidacy but did not respond to questions about his previous party registration as a Republican or ties to the Lawler campaign. Below is a video of that exchange:

1 Frascone Final