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WASHINGTON — When Republican candidate for Congress Ola Hawatmeh sees a yard sign with her name on it, she pulls over her car, grabs a gift bag from the back and knocks on the front door.
If the supporter answers, Hawatmeh, 43, will hand them the gift bag and chat them up. If they don’t, she’ll hang on their doorknob the small bag containing an American flag, some candy, a stress ball, her card and a copy of the Constitution. The gift bags are one way the fashion designer and businesswoman Hawatmeh has been trying to generate energy and support for her candidacy for the 19th District House seat ahead of the June 23 primary in a campaign year upended by coronavirus.
Also hoping to claim victory on Tuesday is Kyle Van De Water, 40, a lawyer and veteran, who announced his campaign in February. Van De Water has been promoting his campaign on social media and has recently resumed in-person speeches and events as the district slowly reopens.
Both are eager to replace U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck. Hawatmeh enters the primary with more campaign funds, but Van De Water has captured nearly all the Republican county committee endorsements in the district.
“I’m campaigning. He’s not,” said Hawatmeh, touting the number of meet-and-greets she’s held. “I have money. He doesn’t.”
From July 2019 to earlier this month, Hawatmeh has raised $271,035 for her campaign and has about $225,000 cash on hand for the general election fight. As of June 3, Van De Water had raised $17,655 and was approaching the primary with about $2,000 in cash.
“The pandemic has made things very difficult,” Van De Water said. “A lot of people have lost their jobs so it’s kind of hard to ask people for money when they’re out of work.”
Both candidates’ hauls pale against the behemoth re-election war chest of Delgado, who has raised about $3.9 million this election cycle and had approximately $2.7 million in cash on hand in early June. About $1.7 million of those funds have been contributed by people out of state, Federal Election Commission records show.
Although Republican John Faso held the seat until 2018, the 19th District is now rated “leans Democratic” by the nonpartisan Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Van De Water has been endorsed by the Republican committees of Columbia, Otsego, Schoharie, Dutchess, Greene, Ulster, Montgomery and Sullivan counties.
Hawatmeh also sought to secure the Conservative Party endorsement and ballot line, but returned her acceptance paperwork one day too late, according to court records and Shaun Marie Levine, executive director for the Conservative Party. Hawatmeh sued the New York State Board of Elections to try to overturn their decision denying her the ballot line. She also took her case to a New York appeals court, but on May 15 the judges ruled against her.
Hawatmeh is endorsed by the NRA. She said she is working to obtain her gun permits in New York after relocating to the state from Missouri in 2019.
Van De Water does not have an NRA rating and he said his “campaign in an oversight did not return the NRA’s candidate survey.” Van De Water wrote on Facebook he is a gun owner and NRA member and “in my mind the most critical element of the Constitution is the 2nd Amendment.”
A Millbrook resident, Van De Water is a litigation attorney in Poughkeepsie and provides legal services to the U.S. Army Reserves. Van De Water was an active duty member of the Army from 2006 to 2014 and was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan. He graduated from Albany Law School and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He’s a father of four.
“I have common sense solutions. I am a man who has raised by two people who claimed they were independents, but were Democrats,” Van De Water said. “I can speak to everybody.”
The daughter of immigrants from Jordan, Hawatmeh has launched multiple fashion and make-over companies and launched several charity initiatives to aid people with cancer. Hawatmeh is a survivor of thyroid and breast cancer and mother of three teenage sons. Hawatmeh also was vice president of the Middle Eastern Women’s Coalition and described speaking with the group at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to support President Donald Trump in 2018.
“I want to unite not fight,” Hawatmeh said. “I’m not a politician. I’m a businesswoman.”
Both Hawatmeh and Van De Water are firm supporters of Trump and first time political candidates. Both candidates highlighted the importance of reducing unemployment across the district, particularly in more rural areas.
“What we need to do is we need to set up economic zone opportunities where businesses come in and they are given tax incentives to set up a plant there,” Van De Water said. “We got to get people back to work.”
Both support aggressive action to curb illegal immigration into the United States.
“I’m a first-generation American that’s against illegals,” Hawatmeh said. “My family came here the legal way and worked really hard to become successful Americans.”
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