{"id":95171,"date":"2026-01-09T21:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T21:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95171\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T21:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T21:10:09","slug":"john-lemondes-drops-bid-to-unseat-john-mannion-in-central-new-york-race-for-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95171\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lemondes drops bid to unseat John Mannion in Central New York race for Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

State Assemblyman John Lemondes<\/a> on Friday dropped his bid to unseat Rep. John Mannion<\/a> in the election for the 22nd Congressional District in Central New York.<\/p>\n

Lemondes, a Republican from LaFayette, instead will seek reelection to a fourth term in the 126th Assembly District representing parts of Onondaga and Cayuga counties.<\/p>\n

Lemondes did not immediately explain the reasons for suspending his campaign for Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a great deal of consideration and heartfelt discussions with my family, I have decided to suspend my campaign for the 22nd Congressional District,\u201d Lemondes said in a statement.<\/p>\n

In an interview with syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, Lemondes said his decision was based on personal reasons. He declined to elaborate.<\/p>\n

Since he launched his campaign for Congress in August, Lemondes has struggled to raise money or convince national GOP leaders to include his campaign on their national priority list.<\/p>\n

Lemondes said he will seek reelection to a fourth term in the 126th Assembly District.<\/p>\n

His decision will set off a chain reaction in Central New York politics. <\/p>\n

Republicans will have to scramble at late date to find a candidate to challenge Mannion in November. And the move upends plans for several Republicans who were interested in campaigning for the Assembly seat that Lemondes would have left vacant.<\/p>\n

Onondaga County Legislator David Knapp<\/a>, R-LaFayette, had already launched a campaign for the 126th Assembly District seat in December.<\/p>\n

Several other potential Republican candidates privately expressed interest in campaigning for what the GOP considers a safe seat, according to Onondaga County Republican Chair Joe Bick.<\/p>\n

Bick declined to identify those who approached him about the Assembly seat.<\/p>\n

Bick said Lemondes informed him about his decision in a phone call Friday. <\/p>\n

Lemondes told Bick that he decided to drop his bid for Congress for personal reasons, but he did not elaborate, Bick said.<\/p>\n

He had only about $31,000 in the bank for his congressional campaign through the end of September, according to Federal Election Commission records. <\/p>\n

Mannion had more than $1 million in his campaign account on the same date.<\/p>\n

Most political analysts in Washington have viewed the potential matchup as uncompetitive. Since November, the Cook Political Report<\/a> has rated the race as \u201clikely Democratic.\u201d<\/p>\n

In previous years, the Syracuse-based House seat has been among the most competitive House races in the nation. Analysts have rated the race as a tossup or as \u201cleaning\u201d to a Democratic or Republican candidate.<\/p>\n

The 22nd District has about 30,000 more registered Democratic voters than Republicans. <\/p>\n

The district spans all of Onondaga and Madison counties, and parts of Cayuga, Cortland and Oneida counties. Almost 70% of the district\u2019s voters are in Onondaga County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Assemblyman John Lemondes on Friday dropped his bid to unseat Rep. John Mannion in the election for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1880,20237,304,2659,9,11,10,9435,12262,7059,5384,10776,10777,4727],"class_list":["post-95171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-central-new-york","tag-cny","tag-editorial","tag-election","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-onondaga","tag-post-standard","tag-republican","tag-syracuse","tag-syracuse-com","tag-trimble","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}