A Republican businessman who recorded a 20-track rap album praising President Donald Trump is struggling to keep a deep-red upstate New York House seat in GOP hands.
Anthony Constantino, the 43-year-old CEO of Sticker Mule, is running to replace GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik in New York’s 21st District. Trump carried the district by 21 points in 2024, but The Guardian reported that Constantino’s lead has slipped to single digits in recent polls.
One survey earlier this month showed him trailing by four points, according to the Guardian, and the Cook Political Report moved the race in September from solid Republican to likely Republican. In early October, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added the district to its Red to Blue program. Constantino has dismissed unfavorable polling, pointing to an August J.L. Partners survey that showed him up 10 points.
His Democratic opponent, dairy farmer Blake Gendebien, says Constantino is out of touch with a district where the median household income is about $70,000. Constantino, who was born into a wealthy family and was registered as a Democrat as recently as 2017, has poured roughly $16 million of his own money into the race.
“He’s on a $16 million vacation through the district because he’s trying to buy himself the seat,” Gendebien told the Guardian. “That’s not how we live up here.”
Constantino has fired back, accusing Gendebien of illegally dumping tires, dead cattle and debris. Gendebien’s campaign says the alleged dumping did not take place on his property.
Constantino released his album, “Thank You President Trump,” last December. It includes a song about Trump’s golf game titled “Hole in One.”
“He shot multiple holes in one,” Constantino said. “That’s not an easy thing to do, and I’m a person that believes if you can do one difficult thing, you can do another difficult thing.”
On another track, he raps that “North Koreans, they love Donald Donald Trump,” before adding, “Might be president one day, just like Donald Donald Trump.”
His music has also taken a darker turn. In a 2025 video posted to WorldStarHipHop, he went after Zohran Mamdani, now New York City’s mayor, opening with expletives before rapping, “I see through your game. You ain’t from here. You’re from Uganda, where your friends kill gays.” He has also called Mamdani a “wannabe terrorist” and offered to pay 10 people $500 each to tell Mamdani that his “terrorist-loving Daddy is a coward who hides behind his weak little boy.” The Guardian described his attacks on politicians as “xenophobic and, in some cases, racist.”
Constantino pitches himself as a job creator who “built a company with over 1,000 people.” But company filings show that Sticker Mule’s full-time workforce in Amsterdam, New York, fell from 610 to 446 between November 2024 and September 2025.
In April 2025, the company laid off 68 workers at its Amsterdam facility, citing automation and robots in Italy, where it also has production. Constantino blamed a boycott that followed his Trump endorsement and said the company is hiring again.
Gendebien is focusing on costs and criticizing Trump’s war with Iran and its impact on gas prices. He has also hit Constantino for telling the Watertown Daily Times, “I am not a fan of unionization,” in a district where one in three households is a union household.
Constantino, who has touted an endorsement from Mike Tyson, says voters should want successful people in politics.
“It’s not easy to become Mike Tyson,” he said.