For years, Trump loyalist Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) has represented New York’s 21st District. But with Stefanik’s decision to retire from Congress, Anthony Constantino is running to follow in her footsteps – and President Donald Trump already endorsed him ahead of a contentious primary.

Constantino told the Washington Reporter in an interview that he initially started running for Congress after Trump selected Stefanik to serve as America’s Ambassador to the United Nations. But after Stefanik withdrew from consideration, Constantino held back until she announced that she was not running again.

As a longtime businessman, Constantino is no stranger to budgets and planning. He told the Reporter that he initially pledged $2.6 million for the special election, because he “make[s] quick decisions and I like to just have fun.” $2.6 million, he said, “was the appreciation and value of my Tesla shares.” Now that he’s running in a regularly scheduled election, he plans to need more. “5 million is a nice number. $10 million is probably too much.”

Unlike most candidates for office, Constantino is “totally self-funding” his race. “I don’t like other people influencing my decisionmaking,” he explained. “Even in business, I don’t have investors. I thought investors were a corrupting influence on business, because I want to be able to take care of my employees, and investors are another constituency. In business, you have three constituencies: customers, employees, and the community where you operate. And then if you take an investor, now you have a fourth constituency that is at odds with those other three because they want the money. So you can’t give it to the community. It’s harder to take care of your constituency.”

He is “the same way in politics,” he said. “As soon as you have a lot of donors, it’s yet another constituency to take care of. My only constituency is the voters. My tag line is ‘nobody’s man, but yours.’ People love it. I don’t want to take money from people because I want to be able to be able to focus exclusively on serving the voters. I don’t want to waste time. A lot of politicians waste tremendous amounts of time talking to donors and trying to raise the money, and that’s not a good thing, but I guess luckily I can avoid that. I don’t blame anyone for having to do what they have to do, but luckily I can avoid that, and I save the time not having to talk to donors, and I save the time not having to listen to them either.”

Despite being a first time candidate, Constantino is able to fund his campaign with millions of dollars because of his success at running his company, Sticker Mule. Constantino made national waves during the 2024 election when he emailed millions of his customers urging them to vote for Trump.

Constantino was met with almost immediate backlash from some of his customers following his Trump endorsement. But for him, the risk was worth it. “If he can almost lose his life, I can risk a little bit of money,” he told himself at the time. “And that’s what happened. I got a massive boycott. I lost 200,000 customers in a day. You want to support people in politics in general who are sacrificing to be there. President Trump sacrificed, he risked his life. Elon Musk sacrificed, he risked his business career. There’s some people who sacrifice in politics, obviously sacrifice to try to make the world a better place, or at least my perspective, that’s what I was trying to do. I think people can see that I support people who sacrifice to make the world a better place. Too many people in politics are in it for your own personal benefit.”

He also doubled down on his Trump support by building a massive sign in support of Trump, which he said demonstrably moved voters to support the president. “I immediately endorsed him to all 5 million my customers, and then put up the ‘Vote for Trump’ sign” following the failed assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. “My goal at the time was to get more people comfortable advocating for the president. People were scared to even advocate for him. People were scared to say even they liked him. It was a silent majority.”

But supporting Trump wasn’t enough for Constantino. “President Trump can’t fight the battle on his own. He needs other people to help him,” he said. He is running for office in part because he does not “like to sit on the sidelines and complain, and there’s a lot going wrong in New York State.”

After Constantino had Trump’s back, the president responded in turn by backing Constantino in his primary. In New York’s 21st District, “everybody’s talking about [the endorsement],” Constantino said. “I already have a candidacy that’s getting a lot of attention. You can check search traffic. You can check Google Trends; interest in my candidacy has been through the roof relative to really anyone else, Democrat or Republican in this district that’s running right now. I try to make myself an exciting candidate. I was able to do that. My name recognition prior to President Trump’s endorsement was 97 percent, which is pretty incredible for a first time, new entrant into politics.”

Should Constantino win in November, one of his top priorities in Congress would be “keep[ing] the border secure forever.”

“President Trump won that argument,” he said. “We’ve got to remind people why the border needs to stay secure. They need to stay secure for the benefit of America, but also for the benefit of these immigrants. We don’t want people coming here illegally because they get raped and human trafficked and murdered on the journey here. We don’t want that happening. We want people to come legally. We’ve got to keep keep it that way forever and ever.”

In the meantime, Constantino said that Trump policies are working on border security. “You can feel the borders are secure,” he said. “[In contrast] I was boxing professionally [in Mexico] when Biden entered the White House, and I know what the consequence of the open border was. I was there. People were talking every day; a large percentage of Mexico had the conversation ‘should we go to America illegally? Because there’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to do it.’ And Mexico was getting hurt too, because of open borders, because all of South America was coming up into Mexico, trying to get into America. So they got hit with a ton of illegal immigration immigration too.”

Closer to home, he said he wants “high speed internet and cell service. It’s a big issue in my district. You drive around and phones don’t work. The internet doesn’t work that great. It hurts the economy. It’s going to be a big lift for the economy when we get reliable cell service, high speed internet. I’m already talking to Starlink to do a pilot program, do a pilot analysis to see what it would cost to even bring service through them.”

Below is a transcript of our interview with Anthony Constantino, lightly edited for clarity.

Washington Reporter:

You’re President Trump’s pick in this safe Republican open seat; what do you see as President Trump’s role in the Republican Party, both in his home state of New York and around the country?

Anthony Constantino:

Well, I’m honored to have the endorsement. I think the most important thing about the endorsement is that my polls went up massively. But the more important thing is I’m entering Congress as a friend of the president and a friend of leadership. The president’s endorsement carries a lot of weight on the strength of that, but being able to make friends with leadership already and other sitting members of Congress. The president’s the leader of the party, and the leader of the free world.

Washington Reporter:

You went from already leading to leading by even more in the polls following his endorsement; how has that translated to support on the ground as you’ve been campaigning?

Anthony Constantino:

Well, everybody’s talking about it, everybody. I already have a candidacy that’s getting a lot of attention. You can check search traffic. You can check Google Trends; interest in my candidacy has been through the roof relative to really anyone else, Democrat or Republican in this district that’s running right now. I try to make myself an exciting candidate. I was able to do that. My name recognition prior to President Trump’s endorsement was 97 percent, which is pretty incredible for a first time, new entrant into politics. So everybody’s talking about the Trump endorsement.

Washington Reporter:

What made you want to throw your hat in the ring?

Anthony Constantino:

I don’t like to sit on the sidelines and complain, and there’s a lot going wrong in New York State. There’s a lot of bad things in politics that happen here. And I’ve said for a while, President Trump can’t fight the battle on his own. He needs other people to help him, which is why I endorsed him following the situation in Butler, when he was shot. I immediately endorsed him to all 5 million my customers, and then put up the ‘Vote for Trump’ sign. My goal at the time was to get more people comfortable advocating for the president. People were scared to even advocate for him. People were scared to say even they liked him. It was a silent majority. They were gonna go to the polls and vote. But I wanted people being comfortable admitting they like the president; I thought that was better for the country, if people could have that conversation. Following his victory, there was a special election that opened up, and the citizens asked me to run. I started getting phone calls. People wanted me to run. I happened to be invited to dinner with a guy named Roger Stone. He invited me to dinner before we knew that there was going to be a congressional race. He just wanted to get to know me. But ironically, a special election opened up. I mentioned that to him during dinner, I said, ‘Roger, I’m getting his text messages and phone calls. People want me to run for Congress. What do you think?’ And he just immediately said, ‘I think it’d be a great idea. You have my full support.’ And we became friends. He advised me for free for a period of time, and then eventually I said, ‘Roger, I gotta pay you. Here’s the number.’ He said, ‘that works,’ and I started paying him.

Washington Reporter:

When you endorsed Trump, you had a huge backlash towards your business. Did you feel like in 2024 there was a shift in the business community’s willingness to embrace Trump on some level?

Anthony Constantino:

The shift in my willingness was that he got shot and almost died. A lot of people made the calculation that they were scared to do it because they were scared of economic backlash for their career, for their business, for whatever they were doing. And I said ‘he just almost lost everything. So whatever backlash hits me, I’m just going to deal with it because it’s going to be economic backlash. If he can almost lose his life, I can risk a little bit of money.’ And that’s what happened. I got a massive boycott. I lost 200,000 customers in a day. You want to support people in politics in general who are sacrificing to be there. President Trump sacrificed, he risked his life. Elon Musk sacrificed, he risked his business career. There’s some people who sacrifice in politics, obviously sacrifice to try to make the world a better place, or at least my perspective, that’s what I was trying to do. I think people can see that I support people who sacrifice to make the world a better place. Too many people in politics are in it for your own personal benefit.

Washington Reporter:

What lessons did you learn from that experience that you would pass on to other people who have had their businesses boycotted?

Anthony Constantino:

That was a personal decision, one I wouldn’t force anyone to make. But, if you do make the decision, stay strong and keep advocating for your positions. Once you’re out there and you make your position known, you’ve got to stay strong, because reversing course isn’t going to accomplish anything because you are a business owner, you’re looking to share your views. I’ve been hit with cancelation five or six times, some much, much smaller ones, and you get used to it over time. I enter politics with a pretty thick skin because I’ve been canceled quite a few times. The last one was the biggest one by far. Maybe don’t go all the way as aggressive as I did, but if you’re curious what it’s like to face backlash, take a stance on something that’s maybe not so difficult to defend, maybe not so difficult to do, and get used to the backlash. If you want to get into politics, you’ve got to get used to people criticizing you. So if it’s something you’ve never experienced before, try it little by little and get used to it. Because that’s what’s going to happen.

Washington Reporter:

There now seems like a willingness from at least some in corporate America to embrace the president and the administration; is that something that you’ve seen in your day job running a company?

Anthony Constantino:

Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, had previously written on Twitter that he was having panic attacks because Donald Trump won. He was protesting President Trump, and all of a sudden I saw him. He stopped by my table at the inauguration to say hi to Roger Stone. The guy went from ‘I’m scared of President Trump and scared of Roger Stone’ to wanting to be friends with Roger Stone and wanting to be friends with President Trump. That happened with a lot of these guys, the Google guys. Remember they had a meeting after Trump won in 2016 attacking the president? And now they like him. I was standing in line to take a leak at the inauguration. The Google guy was behind me. There’s definitely a change in tone. Hopefully, I had a little bit to do with that, because I wrote the endorsement to 5 million people. I put up the vote for Trump sign. I tried to say to people, you can admit you like the president. The least you could do is just admit you like him. Try not to be scared. And I also had this theory that if we all admitted it in unison, there wouldn’t be a backlash anymore, because the reality was millions and millions of people over the world like President Trump, but they were scared to say it. It was easier to attack people one at a time. So I think there’s a change now, hopefully I had something to do with it. I think the president doing a good job has had a lot to do with it as well.

Washington Reporter:

Can you explain how his administration’s agenda has helped your business?

Anthony Constantino:

I just try to make my business thrive under any circumstance. So he was a motivator, and I think that’s an important role that I want to play. He talked about the importance of American manufacturing, and I think he’s a motivator. He motivated me to work harder. Ever since 2016 when he did what he did, he motivated me to work harder. I’m an innovator, so I just work for innovating. I don’t stress about it. I think he’s definitely made some changes that have benefited American businesses. Reducing taxes, reducing regulations, are good for America. I like him. For me personally, the biggest impact in general means he’s been very motivational.

Washington Reporter:

What else in Congress would you want to work on to build on those successes?

Anthony Constantino:

We want to keep the border secure forever. President Trump won that argument. We’ve got to remind people why the border needs to stay secure. They need to stay secure for the benefit of America, but also for the benefit of these immigrants. We don’t want people coming here illegally because they get raped and human trafficked and murdered on the journey here. We don’t want that happening. We want people to come legally. We’ve got to keep keep it that way forever and ever. For my district, I want high speed internet and cell service. It’s a big issue in my district. You drive around and phones don’t work. The internet doesn’t work that great. It hurts the economy. It’s going to be a big lift for the economy when we get reliable cell service, high speed internet. I’m already talking to Starlink to do a pilot program, do a pilot analysis to see what it would cost to even bring service through them. That’s big one for my district.

Washington Reporter:

You were mentioning immigration; most people think about the southern border, but for you in that part of New York, the northern border is very important. How has that changed from Biden’s presidency to the second Trump term?

Anthony Constantino:

Well, you can feel the borders are secure. I’m a little unique because I know the northern border and the southern border. I’m from Northern New York, so I know the northern border. I also box professionally in Mexico. I was boxing professionally when Biden entered the White House, and I know what the consequence of the open border was. I was there. People were talking every day; a large percentage of Mexico had the conversation ‘should we go to America illegally? Because there’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to do it.’ And Mexico was getting hurt too, because of open borders, because all of South America was coming up into Mexico, trying to get into America. So they got hit with a ton of illegal immigration immigration too. And I also know the people that do it, I saw the devastation. I saw people; they would lose family members, they would die, they would get raped. Everybody knew what was happening; it caused a lot of devastation. It caused a lot of human suffering, open borders. I know the southern border because of my situation, and I know the northern border is different. We get terrorism coming through. We get a lot of illegal drugs coming through, illegal cigarettes, things that hurt the economy. New York State’s still fighting against ICE. I think it’s wrong. It’s immoral. We should respect all law enforcement. These are people doing a job, and anyone that’s doing a front line job that’s difficult deserves to be able to do their job. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a frontline chef, dishwasher. I used to be a dishwasher, or if it’s a waitress, a police officer, or an ICE agent. The Democratic Party is being very disrespectful to our ICE agents. I support them.

Washington Reporter:

How is the governor’s race looking in your part of New York?

Anthony Constantino:

My part of the state is deep red. We’ve got a big MAGA movement here. I’m up by 51 points with people who consider themselves MAGA Republicans. That’s the majority of my district. I really like the MAGA movement. I want to grow it, make it bigger statewide, I’m focused on my district right now, and I’m just proud to say I’m up big time in my district. I want to win this primary, and then I want to do what I can to help turn the state red. I’m gonna get a much bigger voice once I win. I’m an effective marketer and an effective persuader. I showed that during the president’s election that I was able to make headlines for the president, and that hopefully helped his race a little bit. In fact, if you look at where I put up the vote for Trump sign, I can get you the data, we massively shifted that area red; there was a major change in support for President Trump, where I was actively campaigning on behalf of the president. Once I win this primary, I want to help turn New York red, and I think my running for Congress is going to make us much more likely to do that.

Washington Reporter:

What message resonates with the bluer and purpler parts of New York State?

Anthony Constantino:

My message to everybody is this: you want people to be honest with you, to spread my message since before the election. Why do you want Trump supporters to lie to you and tell you they’re not they’re not a Trump supporter? Why do you get a situation where people were being dishonest with each other because the Democrats were so mean and nasty to Trump supporters that people were lying and saying they weren’t Trump supporters when they were? We want people to be honest. I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m a Trump supporter. I believe in the things the president believes in. I believe in secure borders. I don’t like transgenderism. But at the end of the day, I’m fighting for a better future for all citizens. I can’t work on policies that only help one one political party. I’m gonna work on policies that help all citizens. I want to grow the economy, put more money into people’s pockets, and do things that make the world a better place. And when you do that, you help both sides. It’s just the way it’s going to go. I hope people know, they look at my background, they can see that as a business person, my constituents were my customers, my employees, and my community, and I served both sides of the aisle consistently my entire life, and I did it very well, and I’m going to do that in Congress. But at the same time, I want to be honest with people, and tell them I see the world the way the president sees it, because I think it leads to better outcomes for everybody. And hopefully I can convince some more moderate-minded Democrats and independent voters to move in the direction the Republican Party and embrace the MAGA movement and keep it going.

Washington Reporter:

Elise Stefanik is leaving very big shoes for her successor to fill in Congress. What do you think her legacy is?

Anthony Constantino:

She’s one of our greatest lawmakers in the United States of America, and I am going to work hard to fill her shoes. I try to learn from the best people. Who do I want to learn from? I like learning from President Trump. I’ve learned a lot from Roger Stone. He’s one of the best consultants in the business. He understands things really well. And I’m trying my best to learn from the way Elise conducted herself, and I’m gonna hopefully build a good relationship with her, and maybe I get lucky and I get a lot of advice from her, but I want to do as good of a job as she did. One other thing I want to stress is that I’m totally self-funding my race.

Washington Reporter:

Tell me about that decision.

Anthony Constantino:

I don’t like other people influencing my decisionmaking. Even in business, I don’t have investors. I thought investors were a corrupting influence on business, because I want to be able to take care of my employees, and investors are another constituency. In business, you have three constituencies: customers, employees, and the community where you operate. And then if you take an investor, now you have a fourth constituency that is at odds with those other three because they want the money. So you can’t give it to the community. It’s harder to take care of your constituency. I didn’t want investors influencing me in any way, because I want to take care of my constituencies that matter as a business person, and I’m the same way in politics. As soon as you have a lot of donors, it’s yet another constituency to take care of. My only constituency is the voters. My tag line is ‘nobody’s man, but yours.’ People love it. I don’t want to take money from people because I want to be able to be able to focus exclusively on serving the voters. I don’t want to waste time. A lot of politicians waste tremendous amounts of time talking to donors and trying to raise the money, and that’s not a good thing, but I guess luckily I can avoid that. I don’t blame anyone for having to do what they have to do, but luckily I can avoid that, and I save the time not having to talk to donors, and I save the time not having to listen to them either.

Washington Reporter:

How much you would need to donate yourself in order to win?

Anthony Constantino:

I make quick decisions, and I like to just have fun. The original number I put up during the special election was $2.6 million. I got that number because that was the appreciation and value of my Tesla shares. I actually don’t invest very often. I don’t have any positions any companies that aren’t Tesla. The only reason I bought Tesla was because everybody was beating up Elon, and I believe in him, and so I wanted proof, so I put a million dollars down on Elon. I gained $2.6 million. So I grabbed that 2.6; I actually never liquidated. I just took that number, and that was my original number. So I had $2.6 million for the special election, and then when we started the general election this election cycle, I just said 5 million is another nice number. So not a lot of analysis. 2.6 was the appreciation value of Tesla, and 5 million is a nice number. $10 million is probably too much. Why not? I’m prepared to do more if I need to, but I think I’m fine.

Washington Reporter:

Is that something that you want to continue in Congress?

Anthony Constantino:

I will fundraise on behalf of the party. I haven’t made a decision with regards to that for myself yet. There are arguments for fundraising to get people invested. I don’t know. I like to stay away from it, you know. But look, I don’t solve problems that I don’t need to solve yet.