Jack Davis (industrialist) - Political Career - 2011 Congressional Campaign

2011 Congressional Campaign

See also: New York's 26th congressional district special election, 2011

Davis changed his political affiliation from Democratic back to Republican in 2010, after developing a favorable working relationship with Chris Lee over the course of Lee's time in office. He expressed interest in the special election to replace Lee, who resigned in February 2011. Davis met with the Republican chairs regarding a possible run, but according to Davis, the meeting "didn't go great". The Party was dissatisfied with his brief time in the Democratic Party and his willingness to run on a third-party line if he didn't get the Republican nomination, according to the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal. A GOP county chair told the The Buffalo News that Davis had disqualified himself by expressing views that were contrary to typical Republican positions. The Republican nomination went to Jane Corwin. Davis also had discussions with Erie County Conservative Party chairman Ralph Lorigo regarding a potential run on that line, but after Corwin received Republican nomination, the other two parties put her on their ballot lines.

Finally, Davis briefly, but unsuccessfully courted the Democrats for their nomination, then decided to run on a newly created independent line, under the name "Tea," sending out paid campaign workers to collect the 3,500 required signatures for a ballot listing (Davis's campaign workers collected over 12,000 signatures in total). He received the endorsement of the Tea Party Coalition of New York, but his Republican opponent Corwin got the endorsements of TEA New York and the Tea Party Express. Davis has said that if elected, he will caucus with the Republicans and Tea Party caucus because his opinions and positions align more closely with those groups than with the Democrats. The Tea Party Coalition is an organization run by Libertarian Party activists James Ostrowski and Allen Coniglio, who use the name "Tea Party" for the ballot line on which they run their independent candidates; Ostrowski and Coniglio previously had used the line for David DiPietro in a state senate race and Janice Volk in a congressional special election in another district prior to Davis using the line.