The race for the 22nd Congressional District is heating up, more than a year and a half before Election Day 2024. DeWitt Democrat Sarah Klee Hood has announced she is running again for the seat. This is Klee Hood’s second try at the seat, after narrowly losing a Democratic primary last summer.
Klee Hood, a DeWitt town councilor and Air Force veteran, said she's announcing this bid fourteen months before a potential 2024 primary and 19 months before the general election so she can begin fundraising in what is expected to be a very competitive race for the 22nd District seat which includes the cities of Syracuse and Utica.
It’s only been five months since voters elected Republican Brandon Williams to represent them, but Klee Hood said it’s important to get her name out this early because of fundraising.
"Start sooner, introduce yourself sooner, get the money in sooner," Klee Hood said. It’s a known political fact that women just aren’t as strong fundraisers as their male competitors so we need the best timeline we can get to ensure that we have a strong start.”
Klee Hood came in second in last June’s primary running a shoestring campaign. She said she decided to run again after analyzing Williams' win over Democratic candidate Francis Conole.
"If you look at the stark numbers of the district, it’s a Biden+8, a Democrat really should have won it," Klee Hood said. That’s when I got thinking, 'What did we as a party miss? Where is there room for improvement.'”
Klee Hood said things learned in the first run will be applied to this campaign.
“We did a deep dive into the numbers, where we performed well, where we could have improved," Klee Hood said. "It’s going to be people focused. Ensuring we are hitting those neighborhoods that didn’t have as many doors knocked last time, ensuring we are out in the community more.”
She said Social Security and abortion are two of the big issues she’ll focus on in the campaign. She is the first Democrat to announce and continue a bid for the seat. Democrat Katelyn Kriesel, a Manlius town councilor, filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission but suspended her campaign in February.
