NY24: Tenney Beats Fratto
Incumbent Claudia Tenney (R-NY24) easily defeated challenger Mario Fratto in the Republican primary on June 25, 2024. Tenney received 61.3% of the votes while Fratto received 38.7%, a margin of 22.6%. This marked the second time in two years that Tenney and Fratto competed for the Republican nomination and the second time that Tenney emerged victorious.
Two years ago, lawyer and businesswoman Tenney defeated lawyer and businessman Fratto by 13.7%. In the 2022 primary, out of 32,852 total votes cast, Tenney received 17,630 votes (53.7%), Fratto received 13,150 votes (40.0%), and another candidate/write-in vote accounted for 6.3%.
This year, out of 30,882 total votes cast, Tenney received 18,916 votes while Fratto received 11,966 votes.
As of June 5, 2025, 20 days before the primary, Tenney had spent $1,509,949 out of the $2,000,689 she had raised, leaving her with $552,189. The subsequent filing will provide a better idea of her final spending on this primary, but it was more than $2 million.
In 2022, Tenney spent $3,559,303 on both the Republican primary and the general election. This amount slightly exceeds the national average of campaign funds to win a congressional seat.
Given that the NY24 district is heavily Republican and non-competitive according to the Cook report, the primary election is crucial because it essentially determines the winner of the general election. As a result, a majority of Tenney’s campaign funds were used to defeat Fratto in the primary.
Whatever she spent on the primary – $2-3 million – was not close to the $25+ million spent on the Democratic primary for NY16. Incumbent Jamal Bowman was defeated by Westchester County Executive George Lattimer.
In 2022, Fratto spent $194,833 and received 13,150 votes, which amounted to about $15 per vote. In the 2024 Republican primary by June 5, 2025, he had spent $87,980, and is expected to spend a similar amount as in 2022. He received 11,966 votes, which is about $16 per vote. This falls short of the amount needed to run a competitive campaign. Like Tenney, he needs to raise at least three million dollars. Fratto has been unable to raise this amount of money in either of his primary bids.
Fratto received a similar percentage of votes this year (38.7%) as he did in 2022 (40%), despite being outspent both times by at least 10:1. It looks like Fratto’s base of Republican support in this district is about 40%. That suggests that 4 out of 10 Republican primary voters in NY24 are unhappy with Tenney. If Fratto had a larger campaign war chest, the Tenney-Fratto contest might have had a different outcome, underscoring the impact of funding on the success of political campaigns.
"Claudia Tenney attempted to blackmail me in 2022 when I was congratulating her on our concession call."
The Republican primary in NY24 was particularly contentious. Charges were going back and forth between the candidates. Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican,” was repeatedly broken by both campaigns. For example, Fratto called Tenney a carpetbagger and a RINO. Tenney called Fratto a RINO, and Trump called Fratto a RINO.
Most seriously, Fratto complained that “Claudia Tenney attempted to blackmail me in 2022 when I was congratulating her on our concession call. She threatened to use a dirty, dishonest campaign against me if I ran again.”
As shown in the transcript of their conversation (see below), Tenney did try to strong-arm him then. And in the 2024 primary campaign, Tenney made good on her threat.
Below is a transcript of the concession call from Mario Fratto to Claudia Tenney on Aug. 23, 2022, following Tenney’s victory in the Republican primary. It appears to have been edited.
Fratto: “Hey, good, Claudia, how you doing.”
Tenney: “I’m doing okay.”
Fratto, “Yeah, I guess so. Well, congratulations. It was fun for my first foray. And you had a good showing. Oswego was really good to you, too, so.”
Tenney: “I just wanna, I just really disappointed in some of the campaign. And just so you know, I’ve listened to all your events. And there hasn’t been a moment I’ve been with you, whether in Cayuga or anywhere, where I haven’t recorded everything. So I just appreciate it if you tell the truth so I don’t have to drip out all my recordings of you…I’m sure you’ll run again and I just want to make sure that if, you know, we have a decent campaign…So, honestly I recorded you when we were sitting in Cayuga, or … there hasn’t been a moment you’ve been with me even in Yates County when I had my phone on, I had my recorder on the whole time. We ran a clean, honest campaign. You know I’m not going to run a nice campaign next time. I always run a positive campaign, but we’re going to definitely bring out, you know, “roll the tape”, so.”
Fratto: “Okay.”
Tenney: “Um. Anyway, I just, I appreciate calling. …I’m recording you right now Mario…I don’t want to argue with you. I appreciate the call. I just, you know, I’m a square, square and fair shooter. I don’t, I just like to have a solid honest campaign, but, I appreciate the call.”
Fratto: “Okay.”
Tenney: “So anyway.”
Fratto: “Well, take care. Have a good night.”
Tenney was apparently recording Fratto even before they were competitors. The Yates County fundraiser Tenney refers to occurred when they were running in different districts. Why is Tenney recording other people?
The Law in New York State On Recording Conversations
It appears that several conversations and other communications between Tenney and Fratto were recorded unbeknownst to Fratto. Is this legal? Can one person record another’s conversation without their permission?
Laws concerning the recording of conversations vary from state to state. In some states, both parties must consent to a conversation being recorded. New York, on the other hand, is a one-party consent state. This means that if you are a participant in the conversation, you have the legal right to record it without obtaining permission. You are not allowed to record a conversation in which you are not a participant unless you get advance permission.
It’s important to note that neither Fratto nor Tenney violated New York State law. Fratto recorded his call to Tenney, and Tenney recorded her conversations with Fratto. However, if individuals other than Tenney and Fratto were involved in the recordings, there might have been violations of the law.
"Claudia Tenney and the New York State Republican party ran one of the most disgraceful, dishonest campaigns I have ever seen."
Mario Fratto aired his grievances with Tenny and the Republican Party in his concession statement. Fratto said, “Claudia Tenney and the New York State Republican party ran one of the most disgraceful, dishonest campaigns I have ever seen. It was full of shameful lies, photoshopped images, deceptively edited video clips, and even Claudia personally messaging voters with slanderous personal attacks against me, my wife, and my family…We had President Trump endorse against us, Speaker Johnson, Jim Jordan, every single Republican Chair, every elected official in the district, and millions spent against us. Despite that and the smear campaign, we still got almost 40% of the vote again.”
As described in the Buffalo News, the Tenney campaign made problematic claims against Fratto.
#1. The claim from Tenney: “White nationalist Nick Fuentes was running Fratto’s campaign” – NOT TRUE.
Tenney said on far right-wing radio host Mark Levine’s show (who also endorsed Tenney), “[Fratto is] fraudulent and a grifter…He’s also involved with another guy who’s a known anti-Semite named Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist who’s been involved in running his campaign…He is running his campaign.”
Tenney’s comments on Levine’s national radio show are wrong. Nick Fuentes never ran Fratto’s campaign.
Ironically, Tenney is more connected to Fuentes than he is to Fratto.
In her campaign advertising, Tenney proudly referred to the endorsement she received from former president and convicted felon Donald Trump. In her advertisement, you hear Trump’s voice (which sounds like it was created using artificial intelligence) offering effusive praise for Tenney and disparaging Fratto. Trump called Fratto a RINO – Republican In Name Only.
Several years ago, there was a dust-up in the media when it came out that Trump had dinner with Fuentes. Politico said, “Donald Trump dined with white nationalist, Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.”
While Tenney was wrong about Fuentes’ role in the Fratto campaign, she had no problem with “a known anti-Semite named Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist,” having dinner with Trump.
#2. The claim from Tenney was that Fratto had lied about joining the Army. NOT TRUE
On the same Mark Levine show, Tenney said. “Another thing about him and sort of an implied stolen valor, this guy said in a podcast that he’d joined the Army…”
Tenney’s statement was based on a podcast in which Fratto talked about his desire to join the Army after America was attacked on 9/11. The Tenney campaign presented only part of the audio of the Fratto podcast. The Tenney campaign included the part of the podcast where Fratto said he tried to join the Army at age 17 – they used this part to say he lied – but the Tenney campaign left out the part where Fratto said he couldn’t join because his father wouldn’t give permission.
As a veteran, I always find it disturbing when politicians who have never served in the U.S. military—and that’s the vast majority—use military service and veteran issues to their own political advantage. Although Tenney never served, her son is a Naval Academy graduate and was a Marine Corps officer on active duty.
The bottom line is that the Republican nominee for the NY24 congressional seat is a badly flawed person with a “broken moral compass,” as described by the Buffalo News. She was severely criticized for mocking an older man who sustained severe head injuries following a violent assault. She is an election denier and Trump supporter endorsed by the former president and convicted felon.
Suppose she is re-elected, which appears inevitable. In that case, she will be another reliable Republican vote to advance their far-right agenda described in frightening detail in Project 2025: The 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Members of the far-right, like Tenney, are laser-focused on stripping Americans of their fundamental rights – a woman’s right to choose, contraception, IVF – and instituting the Trump “dictator from day one” authoritarian regime he’s promised.
One Upstate New York congressional seat that is very competitive this Fall is the Syracuse NY22 seat currently held by Republican Brandon Williams. The Cook Report lists NY22 as “lean Democrat.” Williams, like his upstate Republican colleagues, has had a problematic tenure in Congress, including a disastrous televised committee appearance. I’ll provide more details on this race in the future.
