Washington County Man Announces Independent Run for NY-21
- chrisforny21
- Jan 6
- 3 min read
GLENS FALLS – A Hudson Falls man is the latest to throw his hat the race for the 21st Congressional District. (Christopher Schmidt For Congress)
Christopher Schmidt, 39, is running as an independent candidate in the NY-21 congressional race, and has said he hopes to bring a unique perspective to the position.
The 21st District is considered one of the largest in New York as it includes portions of 15 different upstate counties. The seat is currently held by Republican Elise Stefanik who announced in early November that she would be running for New York governor against incumbent Kathy Hochul.
“I’m tired of what’s going on, and I want to push to rebuild the North Country,” Schmidt said. “I think the people in our district really deserve a voice, and I don’t think they’ve fully had one at least the last couple of election cycles, minimum.”
Schmidt said that he, like many of the people who live in the small towns that make up much of the district, do not feel heard or represented.
“The working class has kind of been pushed to the side,” Schmidt said. “I think that’s why a lot of people have left New York. There’s half a million in the last couple of years who migrated to other states, and I want to try and give them a voice and try to make it more of an open system and have an open-door policy for people to be represented.”
Schmidt works as a day laborer and grew up locally; he graduated from Queensbury High School and attended SUNY Adirondack where he was on the Student Senate. He said he worked as a grassroots organizer for more than a decade in the region.
“I worked to help change criminal justice reform to helping get more equal voting wards, such as in Queensbury, I was an advocate for that,” Schmidt said. “I was on the Student Senate at SUNY Adirondack and formed a committee about energy sustainability and I helped be part of the Master Plan after for the coming decades on how to make a more sustainable program. And I think we need to do that throughout government and the local region.”
If elected, Schmidt said the first bill he plans to work on is the single-subject limitation act, which Schmidt explained would consolidate the text of bills to be one bill, one topic and one vote, as opposed to the thousands of pages that can be involved in some bills that come before Congress.
“I believe that bill would help simplify the process for the voters as well, because I would like to have a more engaged system as well. I want to be the test ground for our district or the rest of the nation for district-wide polling and surveys and try to release that no so that we can get better feedback for how we should vote in Washington. I think this is critical to having people actually be represented, not just party-politics.”
Schmidt claimed there is a lot of waste within government which then creates a need for higher taxes. He said he hopes to lower taxes for the people regionally.
Schmidt said he believes we need to find out how to create new world solutions to lower hospital costs and costs for patients. He said that the cost of living right now is too high, and that food costs and energy costs are on the forefront of people’s minds daily because of that.
“There’s a lot of migration out of the region,” Schmidt said. “So we need to figure out how to create jobs and keep people around for the long term, because if not who’s going to be here? Nurses are going to leave the state, or whatever the case may be. I’ve seen that a lot. I’ve heard of a lot of cases of people moving to Tennessee or South Carolina, other places where there’s more incentive, especially with the cost of living and taxes, property Schmidt is believed to be the first candidate who has announced his run as an independent candidate in the growing number of candidates in the NY-21 race. Schmidt said he does not want to be part of the problem that would come with being a part of the two-party system.
“I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from people, a lot of other people are as frustrated with the two-party system as I am,” Schmidt said. “I think there’s a voice there that needs to be recognized.”
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