Early voting is underway and Election Day is in just over a week. Voters in New York's 23rd Congressional District will choose between Republican Nick Langworthy and Democrat Aaron Gies.
WSKG's Elmira-Corning reporter, Natalie Abruzzo has been following Gies as he campaigns across the district. She spoke with News Director Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo about the campaign.
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Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo: Hi Natalie!
Natalie Abruzzo: Hi, Phoebe.
PTV: So first, tell me a bit about the incumbent in this race.
NA: Sure. Nick Langworthy is in his second term. He was first elected in 2022 after former Congressman Tom Reed resigned after allegations of sexual misconduct became public and an ethics investigation was opened. At the time, Langworthy was the chair of the New York State Republican Party. He served in that role from 2019 to 2023.
PTV: Talk to me about Aaron Gies, the Democratic challenger. You've been traveling around the district and watching his campaign, talking to voters. Tell me about all of it.
NA: Yes. Aaron Gies is the Democratic Party and Working Families Party candidate challenging Langworthy for the congressional seat. He's an associate professor of theology and Franciscan studies at St. Bonaventure University in Cattaraugus County, where he lives with his wife and son.
They're originally from North Carolina. And his campaign is really a family affair: his wife is his treasurer. His brother-in-law, Josh, is his handler, his driver and equipment guy—he sets it up and breaks it down, that sort of thing. He was asked to join the campaign from North Carolina where he said he's known Gies for more than 20 years.
Gies was a registered Republican from the time he was 18 until sometime after he moved to New York. Here's what he said about Trump and supporting Democrats when I spoke with him in May:
“I've spent my life in places where partisan politics are kind of out of place, like churches and classrooms, but I always tried to vote for the best person, the person that I thought would love their neighbor would support the common good. But I think that it became clear to me when Trump came on the scene that that was definitely not Trump. And when it became clear that he was going to win the primary, I did everything I could to resist Trumpism, what became MAGA. And so for a long time, I have supported Democrats, worked for Democrats, donated to Democrats, and voted Republican in primaries.”
He also told me he voted for both Tom Carle and Max Della Pia, the respective 2024 and 2022 Democratic candidates for the same seat.
PTV: So this is a pretty red district, right? What do you think it would take to flip it?
NA: The district has a registered Republican majority, yes. According to the state board of elections, the count for Republicans outpaces the Democrats by nearly 70,000. And that doesn't include the Conservative Party or Working Families Party nor unaffiliated voters, but even factoring those in, it would not be enough to flip the seat without a Democratic candidate flipping voters who wouldn't typically vote for a Democrat.
Gies has been traveling across the district since 2024, listening and talking to people. After winning the June primary, the campaign declared it would hold 100 in-person town halls in 100 days leading up to the general election.
And as of October 6th, he said he was at approximately 60 town halls so far.
Nick Langworthy has not held an in-person town hall since taking office in 2023. Instead, Langworthy hosts telephone town halls. He says he can reach more people that way.
PTV: And Langworthy's faced challenges before he's been able to hold onto his seat. What do you think the Gies campaign strategy is to really try to flip the seat this year?
NA: I think it's the meeting people, it's listening to them and talking directly with them in person that is capturing supporters. It's also quite obvious that his campaign is a youthful campaign. He has a young family. He's a college professor. He's a millennial or digital native, so social media has been used to keep would-be supporters informed and provides a platform for campaign speeches and forums either live or after an event.
He's also got this tagline or campaign slogan, if you will, which says, "A good life should be affordable." It's part of his marketing materials and his stump speech. So he definitely uses it a lot and it's short and to the point, and affordability is the most talked about topic this election cycle by voters.
People who support him on the campaign trail call him a "person of integrity." They say he's “personable” or that he's “the strongest Democrat that's run in this district for at least a couple decades.” They also say he's “unstoppable.”
PTV: Wow. So tell me more about these town hall events across the district.
NA: They range in attendance, Phoebe, from over a hundred to maybe about a dozen. I've attended standing room only events a couple of times. People from every walk of life want to meet him, hear from him, Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
One interesting thing Gies does is that before every town hall, he tries to introduce himself to everyone who walks in. He waves to people, he gives handshakes, he smiles, he approaches attendees and tries to learn their names. He does have a stump speech—that's just par for the course, normal, where you have things that you say over and over.
Gies changes it up sometimes depending on the crowd. He makes this one promise at every event though:
“If elected, I will do in-person town halls in every county of this district every year. I will do a minimum of 18 so that we get to all nine counties twice.”
Something else that stands out to me is that as his campaign has made its way across the nine-county district, is the scramble to find places for him to meet potential voters. In September, Gies told a group about the difficulty planning events in the district:
“We have had a real problem planning town halls in a lot of places in this district because the Republicans own all the buildings and they don't think that it's fair for me to show up and talk. That doesn't seem like democracy to them. So they're suppressing speech by not allowing us to be there.”
PTV: So what did you hear from voters on the campaign trail? What do they care most about the people who show up to these events?
Phoebe, this is a really great question. People want to know how he will help ease the affordability crisis on healthcare, food, groceries, gas, and end the trade wars or the foreign wars.
Will they be able to retire with social security benefits intact? Can Gies pass A.I. and data center regulations to protect jobs and education and the environment?
They also want answers about how Congress will curb ICE raids to protect people from violence.
PTV: There's also been some controversy in this campaign. Talk to me about that.
NA: Yes. Earlier this summer, Phoebe, just after the primary elections, an article came out in the New York Post that exposed information about Gies's brother-in-law, Christopher Nathan White.
It turns out that this one brother-in-law is a level two registered sex offender. He was convicted of one count of rape in the second degree and two counts of a sex offense with a student in 2012.
The New York Post article claimed that White was a videographer for a polar plunge social media video. The Gies campaign hasn't confirmed or denied who shot that video, but they have said the polar plunge wasn't a campaign event. However, the campaign has used the polar plunge event on social media to raise money and support for Gies's campaign multiple times.
The line from the campaign is that White “has never been involved with Aaron Gies's campaign” and that he “unequivocally condemns Mr. White's crimes.”
PTV: Do the voters that you talk to care about this?
NA: Yes and no. That's really the long and short of it, Phoebe. I have spoken to probably a dozen or so people about this topic at Gies campaign events and while reporting in the field.
The consensus is that this is not a deal breaker for their support and that it's his brother-in-law and not the candidate himself.
One person said that, "It's unfortunate that it wasn't out in the open, but it doesn't change a thing."
An unaffiliated voter in Steuben County said it gives her a "minor pause" and is "mildly concerning.” She would be "more concerned if the allegations were about [Gies] himself."
This voter also said it's more important that "politicians are transparent and have integrity and accountability" than flipping the seat from red to blue.
Another unaffiliated voter in Chemung County said she'd have to think about that, but was skeptical about the information and asked whether Gies had disclosed the information anywhere.
The Gies campaign did not disclose or address the information prior to the article being published. It's not clear whether this information could have affected the outcome of the June primary.
PTV: What do experts say about this kind of thing cropping up in political campaigns?
NA: Well, I spoke with Emma Davidson Tribbs, a co-founder of the National Women's Defense League. It's a nonpartisan organization working to implement strong laws against sexual harassment in the workplace.
Last spring, the organization put out a report on the abuse of power in Congress that covers a decade of public workplace sexual harassment allegations. And in some instances, that includes the failure to act on allegations about staffers, not the office holder.
She says it's up to voters to demand more information from those we elect to hold public office to have better transparency.
“If you are concerned about the tertiary people in a candidate's world, we should be asking for those kinds of disclosures. We should be requiring that. And right now the campaign and government world does not require that and doesn't want to. And they're not going to until we as the voters ask them to.”
NA: Two previous officials in New York's 23rd Congressional District seat resigned after ethics investigations into allegations against them were announced by the House Ethics Committee, Eric Massa in 2010, and as previously mentioned, Tom Reed in 2022.
PTV: So what can we expect from this district come Election Day?
NA: Well, Phoebe, my prediction for election day is that more voters will turn out this year than at any other time. The momentum by the Democratic Party in each county in the 23rd Congressional District to register voters and show up to community events and host meet and greets at outdoor booths and in libraries is a level of civic engagement I haven't seen in the last few election cycles.
PTV: Wow. Well, thanks so much, Natalie.
NA: Thank you, Phoebe.
PTV: You can find more of Natalie's reporting at wskg.org. Early Voting runs until Nov. 1. Election Day is Nov. 3.
You can also find more coverage of this year's political races and a voter guide with questions and answers from candidates at wskg.org/elections.