Michelle Frazier and Peter Tague are competing for the open seat in the New York State Senate District 51 left by Peter Oberacker's challenge for higher office.
DELHI, NY — Delhi resident and former Oneonta City Council Member Michelle Frazier is vying to represent the 51st Senate District against Assembly Member Chris Tague (R,C-102). Frazier, who is running on the Democratic and Working Families line, is campaigning on a platform of healthcare, housing and a fair share for rural communities.
Frazier sat down with the River Reporter to talk about her vision for the district and the status of the race.
She was a professor of criminal justice for 13 years and is currently a real estate salesperson, and previously ran in 2024 against incumbent Sen. Peter Oberacker. Frazier said she was motivated to run by hearing the stories of constituents from across the district. She said residents told her about difficulties affording health care, getting to appointments, finding housing and affording groceries. “It’s those stories that fuel me to run,” Frazier said.
Frazier summarized her main platform with three points, health care, housing and assisting rural communities.
On health care, Frazier said that the district is seeing significant challenges, and that the only way to solve these challenges is to embrace a universal model.
“We really need to have a universal system that addresses the rural concerns with respect to cost and access,” she said. “Access for us is also about transportation, our hospital staying here, our doctors staying here, our nurses staying here.”
Frazier said that housing is also an important topic for her platform. She said that as a real estate salesperson, she has heard from people who struggle to get housing. She said that she would work to increase housing stock for all income levels.
“One of the things that’s been misconstrued is that housing is needed for low income,” Frazier said. “We need housing in rural communities for every income. And we need people who understand that and understand how developing in rural communities is a different situation than development of housing in urban areas.”
Underlining her platform is the idea of rural communities getting a fair shake in Albany. Frazier said that rural communities are dealing with their school systems being “starved for funding,” rural roads not being repaired and concerns about affordability. She would attempt to fix that if elected.
“The fair share part is making sure that billionaires and corporations are paying their fair share so that rural communities aren’t suffering with lack of resources,” Frazier said.
Frazier said that even though she hasn’t been elected, she has been building relationships with other senators and others in state politics. She said that her endorsements from senator Lea Webb (D,WF-52), Congressmen Josh Riley and Pat Ryan, county legislators, and other local officials show that she’s already making relationships.
“I’m already forging relationships up and down the system,” Frazier said. “The network of people that I have met [with], spoken with, been in touch with is incredible.”
Frazier said she greatly enjoys this aspect of campaigning
“One of the pieces of this that I really, really enjoy is coming together to solve these problems that are really haunting many of our constituents up and down the levels of government,” Frazier said.
Frazier encouraged everyone to come out to vote, highlighting how close the race is. In a letter to the editor published by the River Reporter in August, Frazier wrote that the race was noted as a key battleground district.
“This is actually a battleground seat for the first time in 43 years,” Frazier said. “Every single vote is going to count.”
In closing, Frazier emphasized her commitment to affordability.
“If you want to lower your bills, you have got to get out there and vote for people who are fighting the corporate interest,” she said. “If you want to get out there and sell our land to data centers, vote for the other guy.”
SCHOHARIE, NY — Assembly Member Christopher Tague (R,C-102) is running to move from the state legislature’s lower chamber to the upper chamber, as he campaigns to represent New York State’s 51st Senate District. Tague, who served as an assembly member for eight years, is running on a platform of affordability and representing rural interests.
Before his term in the Assembly, Tague served as the Schoharie town supervisor. He left that position to run in a special election for his current assembly seat. In state government, Tague has been lauded as an effective lawmaker, ranking as the most effective minority lawmaker in the New York State Assembly for the 2023-2024 legislative session, according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking. Now Tague is hoping to parlay that success in the Assembly into success in the Senate.
“I’ve been successful in my five terms in the Assembly, and I felt that it was time to move on and to make sure that the Senate district was covered by somebody with common sense and somebody that was from here, worked here, lived here and that was going to be able to do the job to deliver for their constituents,” Tague said.
Tague said the guiding principle for his campaign is affordability, saying he views that as the “most important thing” in New York state right now.
“The truth of the matter is it all comes back to affordability,” Tague said. “We have to make New York affordable. It’s just gotten out of control.”
Tague also touted agriculture and taking care of rural communities as part of his platform. Tague started his own dairy farm when he was 16, and as such has taken an interest in agricultural policies. In the Assembly, Tague served as the ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, where he worked closely with chair Donna Lupardo (D-123) to create policies to help New York’s farming communities. Tague said that agriculture and agriculture policies are “very near and dear” to his heart.
“[Lupardo and I] put politics aside and we did what was right for the agricultural community,” Tague said. “Because of my experience in agriculture, it was very helpful to the committee and to legislation because I was able to help them realize areas where we were lacking that we needed to make changes.”
An undercurrent of Tague’s platform is dissatisfaction with the way Albany works. Tague says that in his time in Albany he saw bad policies be implemented that hurt average New Yorkers, policies he railed against. He said the Albany political machine that instituted these policies is to blame for how unaffordable New York is.
“If you have an R next to your name, and you put legislation through, the majority either steals the legislation to put it in as their own, or they don’t allow it to go through,” Tague said. “I have 10 bills in front of me now that I’ve proposed that would help with the affordability issue. We can’t get the legislation on the floor or through committee.”
Tague says that the current Democratic trifecta in Albany needs to be broken up. He said that Democrats have been ineffective, even though they held the governor’s mansion, a supermajority in the Assembly and are one seat short of a supermajority in the senate.
“If New Yorkers are really serious about making New York more affordable and safer, then they need to start electing some Republicans around the state,” Tague said. “Starting off with me.”
When the current incumbent, Sen. Peter Oberacker, announced he would be challenging Congressman Josh Riley (D-19), he reached out to Tague to see if Tague would run for the seat. Since then, the two campaigns have worked closely together, attending events together and collaborating on their campaigns. Despite this, Tague does not feel that he is the “heir apparent” and said he is working hard to win voters.
“I don’t think anybody’s ‘heir apparent’ to anything,” Tague said. “You have to go out there and you have to fight for it, and you have to earn the people’s vote and support. No such thing as ‘heir apparent.’”
Tague highlighted the fact that he had a primary challenger in the race (Sullivan County legislator Terry Blosser-Bernardo) and that he had to campaign hard to win that primary. Tague said that if he wanted to be the heir apparent, he would have run much earlier, when his mentor, former Sen. James L. Seward, left office, saying the seat was offered to him. He declined, saying that his constituents elected him to represent them in the Assembly and that is what he was going to do. Now, five years later, he feels he has spent his time and is ready to face a new challenge.
“It’s time to move on,” Tague said. “I don’t feel that politicians should be in office as a career. I’ve always felt that way.”
In closing, Tague said that it was an “honor and a privilege” to serve his constituents in the Assembly, and that he looks forward to the election, and said that “it would be the biggest honor of my life to earn each person’s vote.”
“I appreciate everyone’s consideration,” Tague said. “I’m looking forward to making new friendships with people I don’t know, and I will work as hard as I have for the constituents, for my family and for myself. That’s who I am.”
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