Klee Hood to run for congress again

TOWN OF DEWITT – DeWitt Town Councilor Sarah Klee Hood announced last week that she will be running for the 22nd congressional district seat in New York for a second time.
Klee Hood planted her stake in the race with a campaign video posted on April 13 titled “Make It Work.” The incumbent representative of the district comprising mainly Onondaga, Madison and Oneida counties is Republican Brandon Williams.
The announcement comes after Democrat Klee Hood fell short to Francis Conole for her party’s nomination in last August’s primary election.
Though her debut campaign for the 22nd district fell short, Klee Hood said she was proud of the showing at the polls, having lost by only about 900 votes after securing roughly 35% of the vote and winning two out of three counties.
Following that primary, she chose to relax and take a break from campaigning, but once she saw how the general election played out in the fall, she “started poking her head up again,” she said.
“I got thinking about what we missed as a party and where there was room for improvement,” Klee Hood said.
After pausing for the holiday season and spending time with her family, she sat down with her husband and two daughters to talk about the idea of running again for Congress, at which point they rooted for her to get back into campaign mode.
Maintaining that she was outspent 12 to 1 by Conole amid her runner-up campaign in 2022, Klee Hood decided to go into her second run a year and a half before the November 2024 general election to allot herself enough time to fundraise and build up momentum prior to the petitioning stage. She said getting on more fortified financial footing is a necessity in politics whether she likes it or not.
“We need the best timing that we can get to ensure that we have a strong start going into the general,” said Klee Hood, a former Air Force operations officer and a technical software program manager in the private sector.
She said Williams’ stances on such issues as Social Security benefits and abortion run contrary to her viewpoints and the wants of “everyday, average” Americans in Central New York. She said Williams seeks to raise the age limit for receiving Social Security while decreasing the funding for that assistance system.
“This cycle, after talking for the last few months with Central New Yorkers, I know that Social Security is top of mind for a lot of folks, as unfortunately women’s reproductive health is still,” Klee Hood said. “We can’t be relying on a representative who doesn’t live here and that wasn’t raised here to be dictating how folks have to address their pocketbook issues at the end of the day.”
Klee Hood said the other core issues she wishes to draw attention to with this campaign are universal healthcare, wage-driven child care, paid family medical leave, and increased access to college and trades.
Calling herself a “relatively private person,” Klee Hood said she learned from her last campaign how to become more “people-focused” and where support for her candidacy could have improved.
“The biggest takeaway for me is having to step outside my comfort zone and do cold calls to introduce myself to national donors,” she said. “People want a representative and a candidate that’s gonna shake their hands, listen to them and talk to them.”
She said she also developed a greater appreciation for non-front-page issues like water bills and brought that mindset back to her role as a DeWitt councilor, a position she has held since November 2021. As councilor, she has also expressed an intent to increase walkability and accessibility in her town with comprehensive sidewalk projects.
Klee Hood’s official website is sarahkleehoodny.com.