NY-22 Minute: Healthcare Dominates Second Coffee with Claudia By Luke Perry
We randomly sampled 33 constituents at Claudia’s Tenney’s second installment of “Coffee with Claudia” yesterday in Binghamton. Healthcare was clearly the top concern similar to the first installment in New Hartford.
67 percent raised the issue with Ms. Tenney, 17 points higher than those who did so in New Hartford. 100 percent of those people were critical of her handling of healthcare, 20 points higher than in New Hartford.
This data confirms reporting on site by Binghamton television stations, including Chloe Vincente at WBNG and the Fox 40 Staff at WICZ-TV.
Other issues constituents raised were: climate change, gun control, Russia, the lack of security presence on site, and Ms. Tenney not holding a town hall.
81 percent of the constituents sampled were women, 19 points higher than in New Hartford. Most appeared to be 60 years of age or older, which was similar to New Hartford.
One notable difference between the two sessions was Congresswoman Tenney's use of social media surrounding the event.
Ms. Tenney’s official Congressional account tweeted several times during Coffee with Claudia in New Hartford, but did not mention the Saturday session in Binghamton. Ms. Tenney tweeted four times on Saturday about her appearance on Fox and Friends that morning, her only tweets of the day. Similarly, her lone post on Facebook also referenced Fox and Friends.
When asked on Wednesday by WUTQ radio about the upcoming Coffee with Claudia in Binghamton, Ms. Tenney stated that “one interesting thing you might want to note” is that people “on the left” were “complaining” in New Hartford about being put into groups with people they disagree with. This led Ms. Tenney to conclude “they are starting to realize that sometimes a town hall setting is really more of a show than it is an effective conversation.” (full passage provided below)
Ms. Tenney has yet to comment on her impressions of yesterday’s Coffee with Claudia. The House is back in session on Monday.
Luke Perry (@PolSciLukePerry) is Chair and Professor of Government at Utica College.
Paul Joyce (@PJoyce_13), an MPA Candidate at the University of Albany, contributed to this report.
Read the NY-22 Minute for timely and comprehensive analysis of the campaign.
Talk of the Town interview with Claudia Tenney, July 12, 2017, WUTQ 100.7 FM (Begins 19:06 mark)
“I think one interesting thing you might want to note is that we brought people in in groups and different, so you’d have a room with people that are maybe on the left and people on the right and they got in the same room and I found that the people that were on the left kept saying, well they were complaining because there were people in the room they didn’t agree with.
And I said ‘well if you go to a town hall, you’re going to have people in the room that you’re not going to agree with and you’re all going to shouting at each other’ and she said well ‘I want a one-on-one with you.’ And I said ‘I did one with you but I’d be happy to do another.’
And so it’s very interesting that they are starting to realize that sometimes the town hall setting is really more of a show than it is really an effective conversation.
I think yesterday they learned that having, you know, they don’t really want to debate the different sides, they really just want to, you know, advance their cause. And that’s fine because I’d be happy to listen to their side of it without someone shouting them down.
And I think that was really interesting, uh, thing that I learned from the town hall yesterday is people really want me to listen to them one-on-one not necessarily being shouted at in a town hall.”
