Anthony Constantino’s Post-Election Crashout

At an election eve rally in upstate New York, Republican congressional candidate Anthony Constantino told the crowd he had a dramatic announcement: Donald Trump was wrong about one thing. An audible gasp rippled through the converted airplane hangar. What could it possibly be? 

“Fake news” wasn’t accurate, Constantino said. “It’s actually evil news.” 

The candidate went on to gesture at the press pen and tell the crowd to take photos of its nefarious inhabitants. The campaign had not granted me credentials, so, like everyone else, I turned my attention to the people Constantino said “should be ashamed” of themselves. What Constantino did not seem to realize was that the most embarrassing thing about the event was that it was happening at all.

One day before the midterms, JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr. were flying into a district the president won by more than 20 points in 2024. Polls showed the race as a dead heat, despite Constantino loaning his campaign $17 million of the fortune he amassed through his novelty company Sticker Mule. Vance and Trump Jr., who arrived on Air Force Two accompanied by the soundtrack of Top Gun, were the reinforcements. 

So, too, was Carol Constantino, who introduced her 44-year-old son as a once challenging kid who nevertheless deserved Republicans’ support. “I’ll also admit that Anthony wasn’t easy,” Carol said about what he was like after her husband passed away when Anthony was a boy. “He was a challenge at times. He was stubborn.”

On Tuesday, Constantino won New York’s 21st congressional district, which runs from around Albany up to the Canadian border, by about 2 points. It was an abysmal showing considering that Rep. Elise Stefanik carried the district by 24 points in 2024. In typical fashion, Constantino showed no humility. Instead, he celebrated his victory with the venom that marked his campaign from start to finish. Come January, Constantino, who will be one of just two GOP freshmen from the Northeast in the new Congress, is in pole position to be the much diminished Republican caucus’ most uncontrollable loudmouth. 

As I wrote in a profile earlier this year, Constantino prevailed over the New York GOP establishment in his primary thanks to a Trump endorsement and millions of dollars of his money. He is one of the most unusual candidates I have ever covered. In addition to being a sticker mogul, Constantino has moonlighted as a rapper and stand-up comic. (Example: A bit about Kamala Harris supporters vomiting before and after he put his penis in their mouths.) He also spent much of the past decade living in Mexico pursuing a new career as a technically professional boxer. 

Stefanik is a Harvard graduate who in 2014 became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Despite attending Albany Academy at the same time, she and Constantino have radically different public images. As I’ve written : 

During his campaign launch held in front of a wall of free turkeys, Constantino labeled Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “perra falsa”—Spanish for fake bitch. He told Gerard Kassar, the head of New York’s Conservative Party, to get “his ass” in a boxing ring, so he could punch him “in the fucking face legally.” In the video for his Zohran Mamdani diss track—which includes the line “fuck you bitch” and includes a reference to the New York mayor’s “boy Osama”—he makes a throat-slitting gesture. In keeping with this thuggish persona, Constantino’s close associates have been accused or found guilty of kidnapping, stealing money from a youth baseball league, and lying to Congress. 

On election night, Constantino rambled for nearly 30 minutes, while wearing a Mike Amiri trucker hat that retails for nearly $400. He thanked his campaign adviser Roger Stone, who Constantino said had told him to be nicer during the campaign. (That may be a first for Stone, a convicted felon and infamous, self-proclaimed “dirty trickster.”) He then had his buddy Jason “Greatness” Jensen—a face-tattooed white man who plays an important role in the Constantino cinematic universe—do a brief rap: “He backed by God, plus he Trump-endorsed.” (God’s position in the race could not be verified.)

As the remarks continued, Constantino increasingly resembled the difficult boy his mom had mentioned raising at the previous day’s rally. He blamed the press for his failure to win by the 20-point margin he’d wanted. The reporters who covered him were “scumbags” and a “bunch of fucking assholes.” Even the members of the press who weren’t “bad people,” were “evil” for failing to expose their colleagues. Pointing to a reporter, he continued, “Look at that asshole, right there … Take a picture of him … [City & State reporter] Kate Lisa, another fucking asshole.”

From there, he had one of those reporters kicked out of the event. “He’s so angry right now, you can just see it in his eyes,” Constantino said in what came across as textbook projection. “He’s just a angry motherfucker,” the congressman elect later added. As a reminder, this was a victory speech. It is hard to imagine what a concession speech might have sounded like. By way of a closing message, he said that Trump should consider “freeing” Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul known as “Diddy” who was convicted last year of transporting people across state lines for prostitution.

Constantino’s invective was not limited to the stage. Around 3:15 a.m. on election night, Constantino sent a text message to Schenectady County GOP Chair Liz Joy that stated, “Resign you scumbag.” (Joy shared the screenshot on X.) About 10 minutes later, the congressman elect posted on X that “NY-21 Republican Chairs are objectively a group of scammers,” adding that Bruce Blakeman, the defeated GOP nominee for New York governor, “was in on the con.” 

In a public reply on Thursday, Blakeman called Constantino “by far the worst candidate I ever encountered.” He is not alone in the assessment; the editorial board of the Albany Times Union wrote in June that it could not “recall ever meeting a more unsuitable candidate.” 

Constantino’s post-victory crashout continued into Friday, when he wrote that a female New York reporter is “33 and looks 53.” When an X user who goes by the name JohnsCow (follower count: 7) called Constantino “Low IQ,” Constantino replied at 2:02 a.m., “My IQ is 132.”

After the rally on Monday, I headed over to the press area to talk to a fellow member of the “evil news” whom I recognized from attacks posted on Constantino’s X feed. But our conversation was cut short by a surreal scene: Constantino was rolling past us on a mobility scooter with a white-bearded veteran more or less sitting on his lap. Moving silently across the floor of the old hangar, the candidate finally seemed to be having a good time.

He had just one question for his staff: “Where’s my mom?”