Republican Assembly Candidate Aide Built Alleged ‘Spoiler’ Candidate’s Website

Judging by their websites, the candidates seem like opposites.

Allen Caruso, a Republican running to unseat Capital Region Democratic Assemblymember Carrie Woerner this November, touts plans to slash taxes and end government benefits for “illegal immigrants.”

Thomas Kenny, who is running on the Working Families Party ballot line, promotes “working-class power.” 

“New York belongs to all of us — not the wealthy,” his website declares.

But the websites have more in common than meets the eye. Metadata reviewed by New York Focus shows that both sites were created by the same person — a Caruso campaign aide.

Since Kenny launched his campaign early this year, Democrats have suspected that he’s a spoiler, running on the left-leaning Working Families Party ballot line in order to siphon votes away from Woerner, the Democratic incumbent — the latest in a string of recent incidents of conservatives allegedly hijacking the party’s ballot line.

The Working Families Party has accused Republicans of “attempting to deceive voters” through Kenny’s candidacy. Until recently, Kenny was a member of the Conservative Party, which is supporting Caruso’s candidacy. In February, just ahead of a legal deadline, he changed his voter registration to Working Families. He then gathered enough petition signatures to run unopposed for the WFP nomination, taking local party leaders by surprise.

Kenny, who is 22 years old, previously denied allegations of ballot hijacking in a statement provided to the Times Union. The website metadata reviewed by New York Focus is the clearest indication of a link between the candidates’ campaigns.

Kenny declined to answer New York Focus’s questions about his website or whether he’s running as a spoiler. “Regardless of what the establishment Working Families Party and Carrie Woerner say about my candidacy, I was put on the ballot by the voters and I am the legal Working Families Party and No Kings candidate running for the Assembly in the 113th District,” Kenny said in an email. (He also successfully petitioned to run on an independent ballot line he created, called No Kings.)

Four graphics were uploaded to Kenny’s campaign website on the day it was created in April, metadata shows. They were all created by an account on Canva, a graphic design platform, belonging to the name Brandon Acres. 

The same Canva account was the source of five graphics uploaded between February and August to Caruso’s website.

The websites share another digital connection. The Squarespace account that created Kenny’s website was established on Feb. 5, 2025, at precisely 1:29:34 am, the site’s metadata shows. An account associated with Brandon Acres, listed as an author on Caruso’s website, has a creation timestamp matching to the second.

Kenny’s campaign has not reported paying Acres. But around the time he appears to have supplied graphics for Kenny’s site, Acres collected nearly $8,000 for his role as a “campaign worker” on Caruso’s campaign. More recently, Caruso’s campaign paid $100,000 to a new company Acres launched, Anderson Strategies, for “professional services.” Caruso recently described Acres as a “marketing consultant” to his campaign.

Acres is more than just a campaign aide. According to a 2016 Facebook post by Caruso’s mother, Acres was at that time the Republican candidate’s “boyfriend.” Acres is also Caruso’s longtime business partner, Politico reported. Acres did not respond to questions from New York Focus.

The race is considered competitive. There are more registered Republicans than Democrats in the district — which covers parts of Saratoga, Warren and Washington counties — and Woerner, who has represented the district since 2015, has had close races in the past. 

The Working Families Party blasted Caruso’s campaign in a statement. “Republicans have stolen ballot lines before, but never as brazenly as they did with Mr. Kenny,” said Gabriela Benazar Acosta, a party spokesperson. “It is abundantly clear that Thomas Kenny is likely a sock puppet of the GOP.”

In April, Woerner’s campaign helped fund an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to have Kenny removed from the Working Families line. Since then, Kenny has had virtually no public presence outside the website. The campaign has reported no expenses or donations from outside contributors. (Kenny — who works as a manager for an Amazon delivery station, according to a financial disclosure form — has reported putting $5,500 of his own money into the campaign.)

The candidates also share a connection on Venmo, the mobile payments service app.

As of early Monday, Kenny had four “friends” on Venmo. One was Caruso’s campaign manager, Everett Noakes, and two others were members of Noakes’s family. After New York Focus asked Kenny whether this indicated a financial connection between them, those “friends” disappeared from his profile. 

Kenny did not answer New York Focus’s questions about his relationship with Noakes. 

Caruso’s campaign did not answer questions about why a worker on its payroll built another candidate’s website or whether Kenny is running as a spoiler.

“I am 100% focused on the people of the 113th Assembly District and I am not aware of the inner workings of either of my opponents’ campaigns,” Caruso said in a statement.

Joe Suhrada, chairman of the Saratoga County Republican Party, said on Wednesday that the county party had “no knowledge of and no involvement in Thomas Kenny’s candidacy, his petitioning, or his campaign website.” He said it was “deeply concerning” for Caruso to “lend support to a campaign on the ultra-left Working Families Party line.”

The criticism comes at a moment of upheaval in the party. Earlier this week, Caruso’s campaign released a recording of a phone conversation in which Suhrada used racist and homophobic slurs, and Suhrada announced he would step down as chairman on Thursday.

New York’s unique fusion voting system allows candidates to run on multiple ballot lines in general elections: the Working Families Party frequently cross-endorses Democratic candidates, and the Conservative Party often supports Republicans. This opens the door for ballot hijacking. A candidate like Kenny can run in one of the minor parties’ primaries and win the nomination unopposed or beat another candidate with a small number of votes. In close races, those candidates could swing the November election.

In 2024, the WFP accused a former Republican, Anthony Frascone, of running on its line to benefit the candidacy of Republican US Rep. Mike Lawler. Nearly 200 Rockland County residents registered to be members of the WFP before the election, and Frascone ended up beating the Democrat with fewer than 300 votes.

Last year, in the race to run the 200,000-person Long Island town of ​​Huntington as town supervisor, a Republican beat a Democrat by 418 votes. An 83-year-old woman, Maria Delgado, got more than 1,200 votes on the Working Families line, but told Newsday she had no idea she was even on the ballot. (A group of volunteer firefighters led by a formerly Republican local power broker was behind the scheme to place her on the ballot, New York magazine later reported.)

In December, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law allowing minor political parties to disenroll members determined to be “not in sympathy” with the parties’ core principles. But the process is cumbersome, and the Working Families Party has not yet moved to disenroll Kenny because he would have remained on the ballot either way.