GOP showdown in the 130th

In the slate of local primaries this month, the Republican contest in the state Assembly’s 130th District could be among the most closely contested. 

Brian Manktelow, who was first elected to the seat in 2018, decided not to seek re-election. Three other Republicans—George Dobbins, Summer Johnson, and Mark Johns—are vying to represent the district, which spans the town of Webster and all of Wayne County,

Underscoring the competitive nature of the race, Johns is endorsed by the Monroe County Republican and Conservative parties, while the Wayne County Republican and Conservative parties, as well as Manktelow himself, have endorsed Dobbins.

The youngest of the three candidates, Dobbins, was born in Lyons, where his family still owns a pharmacy. He returned to his hometown after studying law at Georgetown University and currently commutes to Rochester for his real estate law career.

He worked on Manktelow’s campaign for state Senate in 2016 and was elected to the Lyons town council in 2023.

“The emphasis of this campaign is, it’s time for a new generation of Republicans to have its voice heard,” he says. “If we want young people to stay and move back to (the 130th District), you should have someone’s perspective who is from that generation.”

Johnson was elected Marion town supervisor in an extremely close 2023 race, edging her opponent, Mike Cramer, by 20 votes. She served one term in the position. In 2025, Cramer received the Republican party nomination and defeated Johnson, who ran on the Conservative and Renew Marion party lines.

In this race, Johnson says, her views best reflect the beliefs held by voters in the district.

“If you take a look at our map, we are a very red district in the middle of purple and blue (districts). So, we’re used to holding the line here. We went 61% for Donald Trump in 2024,” says Johnson. “Those beliefs are some of the core principles of the people who live in the 130th and I am the best to represent that because that’s how I live my life. 

“If you were to put my past 10 years next to George Dobbins’ or Mark Johns’ 10 years,” she adds, “it would be clear who’s on top of living those principles.”

Of the three candidates, Johns has by far the most experience in elected office. From 2011 to 2021, he was an assemblymember representing the 135th District, which covered the towns of Webster, Penfield, and Fairport at the time. He was narrowly unseated by Jennifer Lunsford after redistricting—the 2020 map swapped Webster out for East Rochester, Pittsford and Honeoye Falls while Fairport and Penfield stayed in.

After being elected to the Webster Town Board, Johns was appointed to the Monroe County Legislature in 2022 following Matthew Terp’s resignation.

This lengthy history in government has left him with a perhaps surprising central focus to his campaign messaging: instituting term limits for elected officials. Johns says a video encapsulating his thoughts was the first thing to kick off his campaign for this Assembly seat.

“Most people don’t realize what goes on in Albany, but I pull back the curtain. Both of them, Democrats and Republicans, get paid $142,000 a year for part-time work,” says Johns. “They’re only there from January to the first week in June. They get three weeks off during that time, multimillion-dollar pensions, health care for life. And now there’s empty-seat voting, you don’t actually have to be in Albany to vote. 

“It sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit,” he adds, “but this is actually what goes on. And if people knew about it, they would be mad. And if people are mad, they would want reform. And if you’re mad and you want reform, Mark Johns is the guy to vote for.”

Whoever wins the GOP primary will be a heavy favorite to win the general election. Republican candidates have won the district since 1855, the year after the party was founded. According to the state Board of Elections, registered Republicans make up 38% of all enrolled active voters in the 130th District, compared to 26% for Democrats. (Monroe County is almost the polar opposite, with 41% Democratic and 25% Republican enrollment.) Like other parts of the Rochester area, the district has seen a rise in unaffiliated voter enrollment over the last decade or so.

Two Democratic candidates will face off in their party’s 130th District primary. Carl Fitzsimmons is a veteran and an engineer who worked in telecommunications. Joseph Lamanna was part of United Auto Workers leadership and most recently unsuccessfully ran for town council in Williamson. He ran as a Democrat, but was backed by a number of local Republican leaders in that race.

Affordability is key

Among the key issues the three Republican candidates see in the 130th District, affordability and lack of economic opportunity is a throughline.

“In Wayne County, you see the same thing that you see all over the country, right? Factories are closing down, there are fewer and fewer middle-class jobs for people, and so they are moving away,” says Dobbins. “You have this brain drain and family drain, so it becomes harder and harder for institutions, churches, civic clubs, or even small businesses to survive because there’s fewer people. And then because of that, fewer and fewer people want to stay in that area, they want to go somewhere. So, it’s not great.”

According to Census data, Wayne County’s population has declined slightly but remained relatively stable over the past two decades at around 91,000 people. However, that population skews older than the statewide average; 22.3% of county residents are 65 years and older compared to 18.9% statewide.

Webster’s population, on the other hand, has actually grown, from around 37,000 in 2000 to 45,000 today. It has a slightly more balanced age range than its rural neighbor, but its older population is still proportionally higher than the rest of the state.

Recently, Newark-Wayne Community Hospital, part of the Rochester Regional Health network, announced plans to close its inpatient labor and delivery services. It is the only hospital serving Wayne County, which means Wayne now joins Seneca and Yates counties as “birthing deserts,” underlining the county’s shift toward older residents.

This aging of the region concerns Dobbins, who would like to see other young families like his be able to afford living in Wayne County. He thinks that, similar to urban areas, rural areas face an affordable housing shortage. While farms are integral to the region (a 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture census found that Wayne County had the third most farms in the state), there is undeveloped, unused land that could be suitable for building.

“Look, Boomers are slow to get out of their houses, which is fine. I have a house I love in Lyons and I’d have to be dragged out of it myself before I left,” he says. “But if that’s the case, we need to have a process to make it easier in New York to build more single-family houses. In small communities, even 15 new young families will have a huge impact on a school district, on a tax base, on local businesses. But it’s hard right now.”

In addition, the three candidates identify energy costs as another huge challenge for their constituents, laying the blame on Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, signed into law by then Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019.

The fiscal 2027 state budget, which recently was approved two months past its deadline, amended the CLCPA by delaying climate emissions targets and regulations, much to the chagrin of environmental activist groups. This move, made in the name of affordability, is not particularly impressive to the Republican candidates.

“Some of these bills I’m seeing are more than a mortgage for simple electric costs and it’s unsustainable. (Residents) are struggling and they’re scared and they want answers and they need help,” says Johnson. “A $200 rebate check from the state governor’s office is not going to cut it, okay? We need immediate relief.”

“I’ve been critical of the governor in the past and I think a lot of the things that she is pushing are, while possibly well-intentioned, detrimental,” Dobbins says. “(The CLCPA) is going to cost the average upstater $4,000 more a year. I know the people in Wayne County and I know a lot of them can’t afford an extra $4,000 a year to heat their house.” 

The Trump effect

Recent actions taken by the current Republican administration in Washington have also put stress on energy prices. Operation Epic Fury launched strikes into Iran by the American military in February. Since then, there has been a standoff at the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that transits 25% of seaborne oil trade, according to the International Energy Agency.

This shutdown of the strait has caused the price of certain commodities to explode. For example, the prices of diesel and fertilizer, which the agricultural industry relies on, have risen by 46% and 30% since escalation, according to a survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

“It’s true, the Strait of Hormuz is not helping anybody right now. But the point is, what if we had already thought ahead?” says Johns, citing recent interest in nuclear power for Wayne County. “Ten years ago, we were talking about putting up new nuclear power plants, even the smaller modular power plants. We should have done that already.”

Dobbins, who also supports nuclear energy over solar and wind power, prefers not to comment on national issues. “Obviously, the federal level of government affects things at the local level in Wayne County and in Webster,” he says, “but I don’t have time to focus on things I won’t have control of.”

Johnson has hewed closer to national Republicans in both branding and policy. She has accused Dobbins on social media of being a “RINO” (Republican in name only), a pejorative used to describe Republicans deemed to be not conservative or loyal enough to the party. She says Dobbins supports drag shows, an anti-LGBTQ dogwhistle commonly used by the online right, and she has criticized an essay he wrote, which had a positive spin on the anti-Trump Women’s March in D.C.

For her own part, Johnson largely agrees with the administration’s actions. For example, Wayne Community Schools announced in December that federal cuts by the U.S. Department of Education have left the district with a $6 million loss over the next two years. In response, Wayne County joined a lawsuit challenging the cuts.

“I really don’t believe that our federal government should be funding our schools at all,” Johnson says. “We pay enough in school taxes to fund our schools. New York State pays, if not the top, the second or third most per pupil in the nation.

“It’s my core principle belief that the federal government should not be funding our schools at all. You know, even for a lunch program. We have plenty of resources in farms and producers of food here locally that we could be going directly to contracting with them.”

Dobbins is aware of Johnson’s social media posts, but says he makes a point not to respond to them.

He says the essay was from an internal Georgetown University conservative- and libertarian-leaning blog written 10 years ago where he commended the peaceful protest in direct comparison to a previous anti-Trump rally that resulted in property damage. Dobbins adds that he had no involvement with the drag show, which was held as a private event and posted to a community calendar.

“This is America, if you want to have a drag show and you’re an adult in a private rented space, I don’t think the government should have anything to do with what you want to do. It’s not a complicated issue to me,” Dobbins says. “The life expectancy on the eastern side of Wayne County is 10 years younger than the western part of Wayne County. I have a lot bigger issues to think about as a representative of this area than whatever adults do with their private time.”

Bipartisan opportunities

If the Republicans retain the 130th District seat as expected, the winner will face a Democratic supermajority in state government. Dobbins says that advice from Manktelow has helped prepare him for this role.

“You kind of have to be a cheerleader for all that is good in your district. You’ve got to emphasize the good things,” he says. “You have to use your position to draw attention to the good things that are happening, like when a new business opens, or when there’s a parade or a festival. I mean, it seems silly, but that’s the stuff that makes life worth living, right?

“And you have to be the connection for your constituents to the services that they need from the government,” Dobbins adds. “Whether it be the state or the local (government), people will come to you. They might not understand what level of government they need help from, but they know they need help. So you have to understand how to guide them to get that help.”

Overall, Dobbins seems to be the most optimistic about working toward shared goals across the aisle.

“There are certain things you have to stand like a rock in a stream,” he says, citing his pro-life and pro-gun stances as two such cases. “But that being said, there are certain things that I think there is bipartisan appeal for. And I don’t need my name on a bill in order to advocate for or to put my ideas out there. I’m not in this for recognition.”

Dobbins calls himself a “Teddy Roosevelt style” conservationist who wants to balance nature with human development. He also sees opportunity to increase funding for BOCES, which has several sites in Wayne County. Dobbins thinks training and employment opportunities in the trades could be a strategy to attract younger people to the area.

Johns also supports expanding BOCES and has worked with politicians from both parties during his lengthy career in providing a wide variety of career and technical education for both high school and adult learners. However, he also believes that any meaningful change will have to come from outside the system.

“You have to make people understand that the system is broken and we need to reform it. That’s a movement that is outside the politics of Albany. You’re not going to convince a bunch of rich career politicians they ought to be doing something different,” he says. “So, maybe it’s just my voice right now. But all of a sudden, if the people of Wayne County and Webster start chiming in, then you don’t just have one person singing a solo, everybody starts singing along.”

Johns has pledged to term-limit himself and accept no pension for his position.

In addition, he questions whether the other candidates have the right mentality to handle Albany politics. For example, Johns notes that Dobbins declined to participate in a recent debate for the 130th District Republican candidates hosted by Channel 8. 

“Now, if you don’t show up to have a debate with friendly Republicans, you’re not going to stand up to unfriendly Democrats down in Albany, right?” says Johns.

“I took a page out of the Donald Trump 2024 playbook. He didn’t show up to those debates either. Why? Because he didn’t need to,” Dobbins responds. “The forward facing stuff I’m putting out there, it does not mention Summer Johnson or Mark Johns. I am not running against them, I am running for positive things.”

If elected, Johnson says, her strength will be a dedication to transparency with which she will explain her votes to constituents. Johnson also wants to maintain the 130th District’s character, which she thinks is its greatest strength. 

“What I bring to the table is a very strong, bold, unapologetic approach to policy,” she says. “Our charm in District 130 is our grittiness. We are a resilient people. We deal with droughts and floods and diesel prices and seed problems and weather. We’re still here and we’re still producing goods off of our land.

“This is a red district that needs to stay red,” adds Johnson. “Here in New York, we do not have the luxury to (give) any further ground to Democrats or moderates.”

Other primary races

Primary races in local congressional districts are also on the ballot this month. In the heavily blue 25th Congressional District, longtime incumbent Democrat Rep. Joe Morelle is up against left-leaning challenger Robin Wilt. And in the 24th District, three Democratic hopefuls are vying to be the party’s candidate against incumbent Republican Claudia Tenney.

Morelle has cast himself as a steady, experienced hand at the wheel during an administration that has “undermined our democracy.” He adds that preserving federal programs such as Medicaid and SNAP is among his biggest priorities.

This is Wilt’s third bid for the seat after unsuccessful attempts in 2018 and 2020. While she agrees that the current political situation is dire, Wilt believes Morelle and the Democratic Party leadership have been ineffective. She has also criticized Morelle for taking money from lobbying groups, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The latest Federal Election Commission disclosures, covering January 2025 to March 2026, indicate that AIPAC has donated $51,450 to his campaign. This is the second-largest amount from a single entity, behind only his own committee, the Morelle Victory Fund ($168,200), and represents 4% of the $1.3 million total he has raised during this period.

The largest contributor type for Morelle is political action committees, from which he raised $958,945, or 59% of his total contributions.

In that same time period, Morelle has spent $1.07 million, mostly on operating expenses such as consultant fees, payroll, and transportation costs ($999,607).

In contrast, disclosure reports show that his opponent has $22,138 in total contributions, with $11,250 (51%) coming from Wilt herself. She has spent $15,465 thus far, primarily on campaign materials such as signs and T-shirts.

Nicknamed “the Lake District” because all of its counties touch Lake Ontario, District 24 will have a Democratic primary race with Alissa Ellman, Diana Kastenbaum, and Steven Holden competing to run on the party line in the general election.

All three candidates seem united in their priorities for the region, which include fighting disinvestment in rural hospitals, agricultural industries, and educational institutions. They have also indicated they will support the primary winner.

Regardless of whoever wins, they will face an uphill battle against Tenney. Forty-seven percent of all enrolled voters in the district are Republicans, while only 26% are Democrats.

Tenney is running on a platform closely aligned with President Donald Trump, which includes instituting security measures for voting, increasing border security, and an “America First” foreign policy of “peace through strength.”

The Republican-favored state Senate District 54 includes all of Wayne, Ontario, and Livingston counties, along with the towns of Churchville, Chili, Rush, and Mendon in Monroe County.

Either Scott Comegys, an alpaca farmer in Palmyra, or Michael Mills, a former Canandaigua City Council member, will face incumbent Republican Pamela Helming for that seat in the general election. She defeated Comegys with 64% of the vote in the 2024 contest.

Assembly District 137, which covers the southeast and central part of Rochester and the town of Gates, also features a primary showdown among the Democrats, who are heavily favored in voter enrollment there.

This will be incumbent Demond Meeks’ second time defending his seat since first winning a crowded 2020 primary. In 2024, he defeated former city Councilmember Willie Lightfoot with 66% of the vote.

Meeks is running on the promise of increasing affordable housing, wages, and educational funding; expanding health care access; and for Monroe County to be equitably funded by the state on a per-capita basis.

His challenger is Monroe County legislator Mercedes Vazquez-Simmons. She has highlighted her public record, trustworthiness, and leadership in the lead-up to this race.

Among Vazquez-Simmons’ listed endorsements are former Rochester mayoral candidate Shashi Sinha; Sheriff Todd Baxter, whose bail reform PROTECT Act she supported; and Albert Algarin, former founding president of SEIU 1199.

Meeks, who served as a community organizer with SEIU, was endorsed by the union in a social media post this week. He also includes Citizen Action, the Rochester Labor Council, Workers United, and other labor unions in his endorsements.

Statewide, the Democratic primary for comptroller is a three-candidate race between 18-year incumbent Tom DiNapoli, former aide to Elliot Spitzer and housing nonprofit CEO Drew Warshaw, and Raj Goyle, a former Rochester resident. Goyle served as a congressional representative from Kansas from 2007 to 2011.

 Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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