The race for New York\u2019s 19th Congressional District will pit Democratic incumbent Rep. Josh Riley against Republican challenger Peter Oberacker.<\/p>\n
Riley ran for the district back in 2022 and lost to Marc Molinaro before unseating him in a 2024 rematch. Now, he\u2019ll look to avoid his predecessor\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n
Riley says he\u2019s focused on bringing costs down for the district’s families and farmers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the biggest challenges we’re facing right now are the costs from this war in Iran,” Riley said. “I have voted against the war now six times. I think it’s making our country less safe, not more safe. We have lost brave service members and on top of all that, we just can’t afford it here in upstate New York.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Challenging to represent the rural district is Republican state Sen. Peter Oberacker. Oberacker began his political career serving in Otsego County on the Maryland Town Board and later as the town supervisor and county representative. In 2020, Oberacker was elected to serve a state senate district that includes much of the 19th Congressional District.<\/p>\n
He says this campaign is about one word.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAffordability, affordability, and affordability,” Oberacker said. “I have proposed a ratepayer bill of rights in Albany, and I think there’s a framework there. I think there’s actually a blueprint there, no matter if it’s state or federal, that we could look at that would bring accountability. It would bring transparency and power back to the people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If reelected, Riley says he wants to continue fighting to bring down utility prices. During his first term, Riley introduced bills that would end bonuses for utility company CEOs, ban foreign companies from owning local utilities and end taxes on utility bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve even sued my own party’s public service commission in Supreme Court in Albany to reverse the rate hikes that they just approved for Central Hudson,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Oberacker is elected, he\u2019d like to serve on the agriculture and health and human services committees. A food scientist, he says a primary focus will be passing similar legislation as the food safety and chemical disclosure act he cosponsored in Albany.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about some ingredients that weren’t really the best, and we were able to\u2026 I\u2019ll use the word gently remove them,” Oberacker said. “And we gave our processors enough runway to use a product, find alternatives and then come back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Early voting in New York begins Oct. 24. Election Day is Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The race for New York\u2019s 19th Congressional District will pit Democratic incumbent Rep. Josh Riley against Republican challenger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[38490,199,17905,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,87,200],"class_list":["post-377383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-decision-2026","tag-hudson-valley","tag-john-camera","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}