Anthony Constantino is self-funding his congressional campaign after clinching the Republican primary for New York’s 21st District.
The 43-year-old founder and CEO of Sticker Mule, a custom printing company based in Amsterdam, New York, has committed millions of his own dollars to the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Elise Stefanik. Constantino, who built his business from a five-person operation to a global company serving over five million customers across more than 100 countries, told an interviewer that an internal audit showed his company lost as much as $50 million in revenue after he endorsed Donald Trump in 2024.
Rather than retreat from political engagement, Constantino said the backlash drove him to dig in deeper. “This situation in America is never going to get better if somebody doesn’t power through on this and just not back down,” he said. The CEO explained his rationale for self-funding in practical terms: “I want to be self-funding to be an independent-minded person … able to do everything that’s right.”
That financial independence has allowed Constantino to center his campaign on reshoring American manufacturing, a topic he traces directly to his upbringing. Raised in a Rust Belt manufacturing town, he watched factories empty out across upstate New York. “I grew up in a manufacturing town … I saw manufacturers getting destroyed my whole life,” he recalled. “My whole town is covered in empty buildings [that] used to be great factories.”
Sticker Mule, which produces custom stickers, labels, packaging, apparel and other products from facilities in New York, South Carolina and Italy, was built partly as a response to that decline, Constantino said. He argues American manufacturers must innovate their processes until domestic production becomes faster, cheaper and better than overseas alternatives. “We have to start innovating again in the manufacturing space,” he said. “All of our brain power in America in the last 10 to 20 years … went to software. You can innovate in software, but you can innovate in hardware too … In order to bring manufacturing back to America, you have to design your own machines.”
Constantino also pushed back on the idea that automation necessarily eliminates jobs, citing his own company’s growth. “I’m constantly automating. But my growth was so good that I could automate and grow employment and raise wages at the same time,” he said.
In the viral moment that first thrust him into political controversy, Constantino faced what he called one of the earliest corporate cancellations over Trump support. In 2016 he bought MAGA Christmas ornaments for his mother’s elderly neighbors in Florida. Because the purchase was treated as a campaign donation, a left-wing influencer publicized it, and Sticker Mule became a target. “Tens of thousands of Democrats were writing us hate mail,” Constantino recalled. “We just woke up one day, and it was like all hell broke loose … You never had a day where 10,000 people tell you they hate you, they’re going to destroy your company.” That experience, he said, ultimately made him more invested in speaking up rather than staying silent.
The July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump proved to be the final catalyst. Constantino sent an email endorsing the former president to his company’s mailing list of five million customers. “Donald Trump got shot. And at that point, I just said, like, ‘All right, you know, enough’s enough,'” Constantino explained. “That experience … really woke me up to how bad the left has become. I’ve been scared to tell people that I was a Trump supporter. But [now] I want people to know I am a Trump supporter. And nobody should be scared to say that.”
The fallout was immediate and severe. Constantino claimed his company lost roughly 250,000 customers after the endorsement, with the backlash also damaging Sticker Mule’s advertising efficiency. “We took a major hit in search,” he said. After absorbing those losses, Constantino felt he had nothing else to lose politically. When he learned Stefanik’s North Country seat would be open, he decided to run.
Constantino was encouraged to enter the race by Roger Stone, Trump’s longest-serving advisor, according to his campaign website. He has framed his political entry as a high-impact way to give back, viewing his manufacturing success as a blueprint for broader economic renewal.
The general election for New York’s 21st Congressional District will take place in November 2026.