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Brandon Williams appearing on Steve Bannon’s War Room, August 18, 2022
Brandon Williams, a Trump-aligned conservative running in the swingy 22nd Congressional District in Central New York, is picking up support even after a primary ad by a Republican super PAC dubbed him a “liberal elitist.”
Originally from Dallas, Williams worked as an investment banker at Citibank and lived in Seattle and Silicon Valley before buying a truffle farm in Central New York. In 2013, he co-founded software company CPLANE.ai, which automates cloud computing for industrial clients.
In 2016, CPLANE revealed a partnership with PCCW Global, a Hong Kong–based subsidiary of telecommunications provider PCCW. “CPLANE is excited to work with an innovative global service provider such as PCCW Global to tackle this forward-leaning challenge,” Williams said in a press release at the time. China Unicom, a state-owned entity of the Chinese government, has long controlled an 18 percent share of PCCW. Earlier this year, U.S. authorities banned China Unicom from the U.S. market over spying concerns.
Williams’s history of profiting from a company linked to the Chinese government, a hot-button issue with many conservative voters, has not been previously reported by media outlets. But attempts by national Republicans during the primary to ding his populist credentials have proved unsuccessful.
A primary TV ad by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), played up Williams’s record as a Wall Street and Silicon Valley investor and called him a “phony.”
Now, for a race that is neck-and-neck with moderate Democrat and former defense secretary policy adviser Francis Conole, McCarthy will travel to the district to back Williams, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported, for a private luncheon at a local country club where tickets start at $1,000 per person. And the Congressional Leadership Fund has backed him, spending nearly $1 million as of September 27.
The race straddles worlds typically portrayed as distinct: Williams is a tech financier with China ties running on the MAGA message. Before the New York primary in August, he appeared on the talk show of former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, flanked by a Farm Bureau poster and books on “ROME” and “The Levant.” Bannon congratulated his guest: “Everybody’s telling me that your underfunded, bootstrap, MAGA campaign is surging.”
“I’m just simply not going to allow our country to head towards socialism and the Marxist ideology that I see taking over our institutions,” Williams said. “I’m in a primary against a RINO [Republican In Name Only] who’s just another hand-picked, self-funded insider.”
Williams easily beat moderate opponent Steve Wells, founder of a food and beverage company and the former treasurer of the state party, who had been added to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s coveted “Young Guns” program. The super PAC spent almost $1 million on ad buys for Wells, who captured the support of all four Republican chairs in New York’s newly drawn 22nd.
Wells lost to Williams by more than 15 points, despite national party backing, after constituents said he hemmed and hawed in public forums on audience questions involving abortion and unequivocal support for President Donald Trump. On abortion, Wells said that he opposed late-term abortion and federal tax money spent on abortion, but said that the issue should be left to states.
The race straddles worlds typically portrayed as distinct: Williams is a tech financier with China ties running on the MAGA message.
Williams emphatically opposes abortion, though the stance listed on his website has softened since August. The campaign removed a line stating that Williams is “pro-life by faith,” and added that he supports exceptions “in instances of rape, incest, or life of the mother.”
In an interview with the Syracuse Post-Standard, Williams declined to say whether he believes Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Joe Bick, the chair of the largest Republican committee in the district, described Williams as a “fringe” candidate after a meeting, citing “his support for the Jan. 6 insurrection and other extreme views.” Bick declined to be interviewed for this story, but said the committee would support Williams in the general election.
New York Assemblyman John Salka, who said he was Williams’s lone backer among Republican officials in the region, admires Williams’s record as an entrepreneur. Salka raised questions about Williams’s China-linked investments in an early conversation with the candidate, he told the Prospect, and was satisfied with his answer.
“Nowadays, a smart investor does diversify his portfolio, and sometimes international corporations. So I don’t think you could find anything legally at fault with that. Whether someone might find an issue with someone whose portfolio contains Chinese firms—these are all under the guidelines of the SEC, and I appreciate his ambition,” Salka said.
In his interview with Bannon, Williams said he had some success with grassroots mobilizing. “There’s a group called the Onondaga County Constitutional Caucus, Steve, that has literally followed your playbook to reform the GOP to the inside, they’ve done a great job, and they’re returning power to the people.”
If he beats Conole, Williams will be unusually conservative for the district. He is running for the seat of retiring Rep. John Katko, a moderate Republican who voted to impeach President Trump over the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
The district became more competitive after New York’s redistricting process, going from a Biden +18 to Biden +8. The forecasting service FiveThirtyEight currently rates the race as a 50-50 toss-up.
In one forum during the primary, Wells and Williams were asked to name the greatest threat facing America. Wells said it was China, “no question.”
“The number one threat to our country is socialist ideology that has crept into our politics,” Williams answered.
