KINGSTON, N.Y. — A construction trade group lambasted 18th Congressional District Republican candidate Jackie Auringer on Thursday for filming a campaign spot at a construction site in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, rather than in the district she wants to represent.
Auringer is running against U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, D-Gardiner, securing a spot on the ballot last week after a challenge by Democrats to the GOP’s candidacy.
The Hudson Valley Building Trades called out Auringer for filming a “campaign video on a Fort Lauderdale, Florida construction site—reportedly a project of her family’s business—in which the candidate, standing on a job site 1,200 miles from the district she seeks to represent, lectures voters about what’s wrong with the New York economy.”
“While Hudson Valley operating engineers, laborers, carpenters, and ironworkers were home with their families on a cold, rainy April day, Auringer was in 80-degree Broward County sunshine gathering B-roll for her campaign—and telling the camera that the way to fix the economy is to listen to the people doing the work.”
“We want to fix the economy,” Auringer says in the video posted on her campaign’s Instagram account on April 25. “We need to start by listening to the people who are out here doing the work.”
The construction trades group says Auringer is correct on that account.
“She’s right—you have to listen to the people doing the work,” said Todd Diorio Hudson Valley Building Trades President / Business Manager Eastern NY Laborers’ District Council. “But in NY-18, that work is happening in Kingston, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, and Middletown—not Fort Lauderdale.
“You don’t need a plane ticket to hear from Hudson Valley workers. You need to drive across town. It says a lot that when this candidate filmed a video about the Hudson Valley economy, she did it on a job site in Florida.” Diorio said. “Hudson Valley is where our membership lives and works; local workers don’t need a lecture from Florida.”
Auringer said Ryan’s supporters are targeting her again.
“Just weeks into this campaign, Pat Ryan already tried to knock me off the ballot. Now his political allies are launching personal attacks against me and my family over an Instagram post,” Auringer said in a statement. “That tells you everything you need to know about what’s wrong with politics today.”
Aurigner’s campaign said the Instagram video was shot in Florida at a site where she was working.
The trades group noted that Auringer is “a regular” at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, “founded the political organization Palm Beach Conservatives and served as an officer of the Palm Beach Federated Republican Women,” adding that she just recently registered to vote at a family-owned property in Kingston.
The trades organization said the “broader Auringer-family network of non-union construction enterprises—operated by the Auringers, and including crane, hoist, and structural steel companies—has a documented public record of conflict with workers and regulators.”
The town of Kingston has been dealing with controversy since 2020 over a proposal to build a concrete and steel fabrication plant at a former quary site at 850 state Route 32 by U.S. Crane owner Tom Auringer, at the property within the Bluestone Wild Forest near Onteora Lake. After several years of disputes that filled the Town Hall meeting room, the company opted for the ability to use six acres for the storage of large cranes and associated equipment. Jackie Auringer is Tom Auringer’s daughter. According to her campaign site, she “works in her family’s construction business, where she serves as a project manager and managerial accountant.”