Beginning in the 1950s, Davis was a self-described "
Goldwater Republican." In late 2003, he attended a Republican fundraiser in
Buffalo featuring Vice President
Dick Cheney. Davis attempted to discuss his opposition to U.S. free trade policies with Cheney, but Cheney's staff refused and ordered his ejection from the fundraiser, leading him to quit the Republican Party and join the
Democratic Party. In 2011, Davis was described as favoring gun rights and said that his position on the Second Amendment was similar to that of other members of the Tea Party movement. He took inconsistent positions on abortion rights and opposed the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. In 2016, Davis endorsed
Donald Trump for president of the United States, citing their shared criticism of free trade deals and independence from Wall Street donors.
University of Buffalo political science professor cited Davis's congressional campaigns as precedent for the region's support for both Trump and
Bernie Sanders. In 2024, U.S. representative
Nick Langworthy, who managed the 2006 campaign against him, cited Davis as "a pre-Trump
canary in the coal mine for Western New York." between 2004 and 2011.
2004 U.S. House campaign In 2004, after his party switch, Davis entered electoral politics as a
Democratic candidate for the
United States House of Representatives from
New York's 26th district against Republican incumbent
Tom Reynolds, who was considered unbeatable. The district consisted of the areas between
Buffalo and
Rochester, a region with many struggling farms and factories, and Reynolds had won the
2002 election with 75 percent of the vote against 25 percent for his Democratic challenger. Davis spent a total of $1.2 million of personal money on his campaign, forcing Reynolds to run campaign ads for the first time since his first election in
1998. On election day, Reynolds won with 56 percent of the vote against 44 percent for Davis, a major shift from 2002. Observers cited Davis's personal spending as the primary factor in his improvement over the 2002 margin, as well as an undercurrent of working-class resentment over the decline of the manufacturing sector. Others attributed the margin to the politics of the specific candidates; although he opposed
free trade agreements, Davis generally advocated
limited-government libertarian conservatism and criticized Reynolds' efforts to align himself with the Southern leadership of the Republican Party in Congress, including
Tom DeLay.
Save Jobs After the election, Davis was fined for violating campaign finance reporting laws by funneling money to his campaign through Save Jobs, a non-profit he had founded. The federal government and New York state both fined Davis for failing to comply with political disclosure requirements. In March 2005, Davis officially registered Save Jobs as a political party to support his next campaign. Save Jobs advocated for However, the party soon ran into legal trouble. In one incident, an
Erie County legislator sought an
FBI investigation over last-minute
automated phone calls made from Davis's campaign headquarters. In early 2006, Davis' state PAC was sued in a state court for improper filing of financial disclosures. Davis abandoned the fledgling party. Although Republicans accused him of using the party merely as a springboard for a 2006 rematch against Reynolds, Davis sponsored more than a dozen candidates for public office in races across Western New York.
2006 U.S. House campaign In 2006, Davis ran against Reynolds again as the candidate of the
Democratic,
Working Families and
Independence parties under New York's
electoral fusion rule. He was unopposed in the Democratic primary on September 12. Amidst the
Mark Foley scandal, it was widely reported that Reynolds, as a member of Republican congressional leadership, had knowledge of inappropriate e-mails between Foley and a male page, although he was unaware of more explicit instant messages reported by
ABC News. In addition to the scandal, the Republican
administration of George W. Bush was increasingly unpopular, leading to a Democratic
wave in the
2006 elections. Davis led Reynolds in several polls taken during the month of October, but an early November poll showed him trailing 46 percent to 50 percent. As in 2004, Reynolds won but by a much narrower margin. Davis lost by a "hair's breadth", according to
The Washington Post. Lee resigned from Congress in February 2011 amid a sex scandal, leading to a special election to fill the vacant seat which Davis contested. The election was expected to heavily favor the Republican Party, given their success in the 2010 elections and the Republican history of the district, and Davis initially sought to run as a Republican by meeting with local party chairs to seek their endorsement. However, Davis said the meeting "didn't go great." The
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal reported that Republicans were averse to Davis because of his 2004 and 2006 campaigns against Tom Reynolds and his open willingness to seek the seat on a third-party line if he was not nominated. The
Conservative Party of New York, which had considered nominating Davis, also nominated Corwin. He received the endorsement of the Tea Party Coalition of New York, a Libertarian Party-aligned group, but Corwin was endorsed by other
Tea Party movement support groups, including the
Tea Party Express, who criticized his use of the Tea Party name. Davis said that if elected, he would caucus with the Republican Party.
Roll Call also said that outside funds coming from both liberal and conservative groups had "turned the Buffalo and Rochester airwaves into a steady stream of campaign ads." Polling and reporting during the campaign showed Davis playing the role of
spoiler candidate against Corwin. A late April poll by Siena had Corwin leading with 36 percent of the vote, followed by Hochul with 31 percent and Davis with 23 percent. An early May poll by the Public Policy Institute showed Hochul at 35 percent, Corwin at 31 percent and Davis at 24 percent, with an unusually high number of voters expressing a negative opinion of each candidate. The
New York Times reported that Davis's candidacy, along with a reported Republican plan to privatize
Medicare, had turned a "certain victory" for Republicans into a "fiercely competitive race." During the campaign, a 15-second video clip circulated by local and national Republican organizations appeared to show Corwin's chief of staff, Michael Mallia, harassing Davis over skipping a debate, followed by Mallia yelping as Davis apparently shoved him or flapped at the camera. The video prompted bipartisan criticism of Davis and Mallia. In the final result, Hochul won with 47 percent of the vote against 42 percent for Corwin. Davis finished third with 9 percent. TEA New York, a group which had endorsed Corwin, blamed Davis for Hochul's victory. == Personal life and death ==