Up for the challenge

The two best compliments Virginia McIntyre says she has received as a freshman Monroe County legislator are a comparison to a local political legend and an acknowledgment of her willingness to stand apart from her own party—an independent “with an ‘R’ next to her name.”

“Somebody called me a young female Joe Robach, which was very sweet, because he’s well-loved. You go into the community, people still remember when Joe showed up. Joe would come and he’d help you set up the tables, and he didn’t have to,” McIntyre says of Robach, who served 30 years in the state Legislature.

McIntyre spoke with the Beacon last week. She arrived at Founders Cafe with her mother, Kathleen Johnson, a retired law enforcement officer wearing a “Vote for McIntyre” T-shirt adorned with a half-dozen pins. Johnson enjoyed a Pepsi while her daughter spoke about her bid to win election to Congress representing New York’s 25th District in Congress, which spans all of Monroe and part of Orleans counties.

McIntyre knows she faces an uphill battle in November, trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Joe Morelle, who has represented the staunchly blue 25th District since 2018. She’s banking on voters’ desire for elected officials who are accessible to the public, and highlights her commitment to constituents over party politics and willingness to work with Democrats.

The first-time congressional candidate takes pride in being seen as above party politics and considers it part of her brand as a pragmatic Republican in a county that is increasingly Democratic. Although her policy platforms focus on conservative cornerstones such as public safety and jobs, she says she leans in on what her constituents want, leading her to breaking with her peers in the Legislature on occasion. For example, she and Tom Sinclair were the only two Republicans who voted against the hotly debated opt-out clause related to the establishments of a registry for short-term rental properties such as Airbnb or vacation rental by owner units.

McIntyre was first elected to represent District 4, which covers the towns of Gates and Greece, in 2023 after winning a Republican primary contest. Although not yet through her first term, she is ready to take on Morelle.

The Democrat congressman is a Goliath in funding, experience, and connections when compared to McIntyre. However, she believes it is important to challenge him, citing his connections to lobbying groups and political action committees, and influence on county-level legislation.

“Lockheed Martin is donating (to Morelle). Avangrid (the parent company of RG&E) is donating. They’ve given tons of money to my opponent and his son lobbies for (Avangrid) as well,” says McIntyre. “You’re getting all this funding, sooner or later you’re going to have to pay the fiddler.

“We keep offloading our responsibilities to the government and expecting them to be ethical about how they use this power that we’re giving them,” she adds. “I think it’s supposed to be ‘We, the people.’ So that is what makes me a Republican. That idea of personal power, personal responsibility, personal empowerment.”

Experiences overseas

McIntyre’s unique perspective comes from her background as a trained opera singer. The profession took the Gates native to many places, including a 20-year stint in Italy. She returned to her hometown in 2021 to care for her mother.

She began in opera and was largely uninterested in politics. Her career in the arts meant McIntyre’s more conservative worldview sometimes felt out of place. However, she believes it has helped her see more perspectives. 

“I wanted to be Renee Fleming,” recalls McIntyre, who was inspired by the opera superstar who grew up in Churchville. “So, what does Renee Fleming care about current events? I didn’t, right? I voted. I was always a registered Republican, but it was a very laid-back thing for me. Obviously you’re circulating in a circle full of very, very liberal people. But at that time it just was, nobody asked you about it.

“I never expected that I would be a teacher, and I certainly never expected that I would get into public service as far as holding a political office,” she adds.

During her time in Italy, McIntyre shifted from singing to teaching English instead. She also helped migrants navigate the Italian bureaucracy during an immigration crisis in the mid-2010s. She was inspired, in part, to do that work by her own difficult experiences living in Italy as a foreigner, as well as her family’s history as Italian immigrants to the United States.

Those experiences also shaped McIntyre to have a more moderate vision for immigration policy than many Republicans today. She believes that there is crime associated with illegal immigration, with human trafficking a large part of that picture.

However, she opposes sanctuary policies, which she believes hampers law enforcement and increases the level of distrust systemwide.

“What you’re doing is you’re basically telling police officers that their hands are tied when somebody is an immigrant. And it becomes a problem,” she says. “The reason we’re having so many negative interactions with these agents is because of all that back and forth. Mistakes are being made because your local people trust those local officers that they know. But they can’t handle these situations because of the sanctuary city policies and we’re getting all kinds of flare-ups all over the place.

“Immigration is one thing where we would all benefit by coming to the table and being a little bit more moderate and rational,” she continues. “(Political leaders are) not quietly helping people in the background, which is what should be happening. (But) that’s not a flashy headline.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have conducted multiple raids in the region, at locations including the Asia Food Market in Henrietta. This July, ICE reported an all-time high arrest total of 569 arrests in Upstate New York, prompting local immigration advocacy groups to support the Protect Our Neighbors campaign, which aims to end cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities. 

This May, Morelle introduced the Respect Our Communities (ROC) Act, which would compel immigration enforcement agencies to provide public notice, comment periods, impact reviews, and state and local approvals before constructing new detention facilities.

“When the Trump administration pushed this project into downtown Rochester without listening to the community, they made it clear they don’t believe local voices matter,” Morelle said at the time, referring to the plan for immigration detention cells at the Federal Building downtown, which is now on hold. 

“The ROC Act is about restoring transparency, accountability, and respect for the communities forced to live with these decisions,” he said. “Rochester deserved a voice in this process, and every community across America deserves the same.”

Against the odds

The enrollment numbers are not in McIntyre’s, or any Republican’s, favor in New York’s 25th District. It has historically been a Democratic stronghold; Louise Slaughter held the seat consecutively from 1987 to 2018, when she passed away.

Morelle has carried on that tradition since 2018, when he won both the special election to complete Slaughter’s term and the general election for a full term. He has defeated Republican opponents in four elections. His closest call was in 2022 against former Rochester Police Department chief La’Ron Singletary, where he still won by 7 percentage points (53% to 46%).

Voter enrollment records suggest the district has become even stronger for Democratic candidates over the past decade. Since 2012, when redistricting changed the area from “Earmuffs” covering Rochester and Buffalo, the share of Republican voters has declined.

In 2012, the district’s 124,955 active Republican voters made up 29% of the enrolled electorate. Fourteen years later, their ranks have grown to 130,501, but they account for just 25% of voters.

Even though their turnout is generally better than Democrats, Republicans have averaged only around 42% of the vote in the general election. Their best showing was 48% in 2014, when Mark Assini lost to Slaughter by less than 1 percent.

Republican voter decline over this period has not been matched by a rise in active Democrats, however. Although the party has increased its enrolled voters from 168,290 to 205,728 in that time period, the enrollment share for them remains at about 40%.

Instead, unaffiliated voters have been the fastest-growing segment in District 25. In 2012, 98,542 active voters held no party affiliation. In 2026, that number grew to 161,139 voters, or 31% of the electorate.

McIntyre says she wants to offer a viable option for dissatisfied Democrats and unaffiliated voters, not just members of her own party. She believes she can do this by meeting people where Republicans are not typically seen.

Recently, she praised the bipartisan support shown at the New York State Passenger Rail Symposium held downtown and said she’s interested in hearing from constituents about a possible commuter train linking Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.

“How do you fight through the stigma of being a Republican? You show up,” McIntyre says. “So that’s what I’ve been doing. I know it’s going to include the city. I try to be very active in the city, more than I think anybody has been before me.

“(After talking to voters), we’re getting people saying, ‘I would rather be hit by a bus than vote for Trump.’ I get it. I get that they don’t like Trump. And that’s why I’m not Trump-endorsed. I didn’t go for that endorsement,” she adds. “I am hoping that the people that do understand who I am and what I’m about will take me into consideration. If you don’t want to vote on that Republican line because you can’t stand the Republican front, write me in. That’s always an option. People are really tired. People want change, I’ll tell you that.”

Campaign funding

To defeat Morelle, McIntyre will need to overcome the incumbent’s huge fundraising advantage. In the latest federal financial disclosure reports, Morelle lists contributions totaling over $2.3 million, compared with McIntyre’s $26,108.

Political action committees contributed $1.2 million to Morelle’s campaign. As in the Democratic primary this June, the largest contributors in that category were the incumbent’s own committee, the Morelle Victory Fund ($174,500), and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ($102,450). Morelle’s opponent in that race, Robin Wilt, criticized his use of PAC money, particularly his acceptance of money from AIPAC.

(A web page attached to McIntyre’s campaign last updated Sept. 4 lists $853,475 in “official other-committee contributions” to Morelle’s campaign. Several entries are different from the Beacon analysis of available disclosure reports, including AIPAC.)

“Robin made it the focus of her campaign to go after AIPAC and Palestine and all of that.

And she lost miserably because of it,” McIntyre says of the primary race. “I kept hearing from people over and over and over again, that was the reason they voted against her, which tells me there’s a lot of support for Israel here. You can like that, you can not like that; I tend to be an America kind of girl, but I do understand there’s a lot of support for that community.”

McIntyre says she received a call from AIPAC about being supported by them, but ultimately declined.

“If I have to vote this way, because that’s what the community wants, I don’t ever want there to be a question as to why I’m voting,” she says. 

The other 246 PAC contributors to Morelle include political groups like the center-left pragmatic New Democrat Coalition; the Democratic Action Network, which aims to flip Republican seats; and Defend the Vote, an organization advocating for ballot access.

Lobbies for national brands, such as Lockheed Martin, Amazon, Pfizer, Nike, Draft Kings, Uber, Dunkin’, Verizon, and State Farm, and more local ones, like Constellation Brands, L3 Harris, and Xerox, also have contributed funds to Morelle’s campaign.

In comparison, McIntyre’s campaign is funded by four committees and 31 individual contributors. Most were also contributors to her Monroe County Legislature run in 2023.

The committees are local Republican organizations, including the Gates GOP Town Committee and Riga Republican Committee. Several individual donors are current or former politicians: Gregg Sadwick, who ran against Morelle in 2024; Frank Allkofer, the District 4 county legislator before McIntyre; Peter Elder, chairman of the Monroe County Republican Committee; and Richard Antelli, a former Greece politician who faced workplace allegations in 2018.

Morelle has faced criticism from Wilt and Democratic county legislator Rachel Barnart because his son, Nicholas Morelle, is a senior vice president at Ostroff Associates, a lobbying firm that has Airbnb and Avangrid among the 150 companies listed as clients. Diana and Richard Ostroff, who head the firm, gave $10,500 each to Morelle’s reelection campaign, the single largest contribution from individual donors.

McIntyre agrees with their criticism and uses it in her campaign materials. She believes those connections are a key reason why county legislation for a short-term rental registry received steep pushback and did not pass. Barnhart released documents at the time of that vote suggesting that Nicholas Morelle provided the county with draft language for an opt-out bill.

“That’s not you listening to the people. That’s you doing what you want to do for your lobbyist son’s representatives. That’s terrible,” McIntyre says.

No evidence shows Morelle’s connections influenced the vote’s result, a 21-8 decision in favor of the opt-out. At the time, County Executive Adam Bello responded to Barnhart with a statement denouncing the accusations as “offensive, spurious, and baseless.”

“Legislator Barnhart told a compelling story tonight at the County Legislature meeting. Unfortunately, it’s just that—a story,” Bello added.

Morelle has never publicly commented on criticism of his son’s position at Ostroff Associates. The Beacon sought comment from Morelle for this story but did not receive a reply.

Public power

This cycle, Morelle received $10,000 in contributions from Avangrid, a company that has been in the public eye because of rising consumer energy costs and several failed attempts at a public option feasibility study in the Monroe County Legislature.

In 2024, McIntyre voted against the feasibility study. She acknowledged the passion from advocacy groups whom she met with in explaining her vote, but said that constituents urged her to vote against the study and warned against government-run utilities based on her own experiences in Italy.

“What I found is that many of these (publicly-run) services are sold over here in America as being some sort of magical miracle cure to all of the different problems that we have with accountability of the private agencies,” McIntyre said at the time. “Yet I saw the poorest people suffer over and over and over again by not actually getting what we were sold. I don’t think that people here understand that sometimes what you’re told before a takeover like this happens doesn’t actually reflect the way it’s going to impact those people that we say we want to protect.

“I’m constantly talking to my voters,” she added. “And voter after voter has told me that they do not want this study. They do not want RG&E to be taken over. They’re not huge fans of RG&E and they’re not happy with the billing process, but they do not want the government to own this utility.”

Reflecting on that vote now, McIntyre says constituents are still unhappy with their energy bills, but she is not sure how she would vote if it was called tomorrow.

“I don’t know how I’d vote because I vote for my people,” she says.

McIntyre says she would co-sponsor and be “pounding the ground” for the Keep the Lights Local Act, a Democratic-sponsored bill that would prohibit foreign ownership of public utilities. Avangrid, which is owned by the Spanish-based Iberdola, would fall into that category.

“Here’s one of the things I would call (Trump) out on. Trump was very upset about TikTok being a Chinese company and he forced them to divest at least to a point where it’s 51% American-owned,” she says. “How is it that our critical energy infrastructure is owned by a foreign conglomerate and you’re not making that big of a stink about it?”

Morelle has attacked Trump administration decisions on rising energy costs, citing “conflict overseas to misplaced priorities here at home.” 

At the time of his comments in March, he noted that the war in Iran had already cost over $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer money.

David Wazana is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s second cohort. Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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