Voters in the Capital Region\u2019s 20th Congressional District are choosing between a longtime Democratic incumbent and a Republican who has never held elected office.<\/p>\n
Democratic Rep. Paul Tonko is facing Republican challenger Ralph Ambrosio in the Nov. 3 election.<\/p>\n
Ambrosio is a Navy veteran who spent 23 years with the State Police and worked as a prosecutor, public defender and assistant attorney general. He has never held elected office and says he supports term limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am running for Congress in the 20th Congressional District to reduce taxes, get rid of unnecessary regulations, all of the above energy policy,\u201d Ambrosio said. \u201cI want to back the blue. I want to make sure our communities are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tonko, an engineer by training, served in county and state government before winning his House seat in 2009. He has held it since and sits on the Energy and Commerce and Budget committees.<\/p>\n
Asked about seeking another term, Tonko pointed to unfinished business in Congress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes, in some cases, several terms to get the sponsors and the support and the recognition of the value of the legislation,\u201d Tonko said.<\/p>\n
Ambrosio said that if elected, he would prioritize tracking how federal money is spent. He pointed to the Albany International Airport renovation as an example.<\/p>\n
\u201cA major portion of a congressman\u2019s job is to perform oversight,\u201d Ambrosio said. \u201cYou just don\u2019t give money away. You have to follow it and see if it\u2019s being spent appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tonko said affordability would be a focus if he is reelected. He said the current approach is costing the country and taking dollars out of taxpayers\u2019 pockets.<\/p>\n
On public safety, Ambrosio, who represented the State Police in disciplinary cases, said he would back law enforcement but hold officers accountable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those disciplinary hearings, we fired troopers that violated their oath,\u201d Ambrosio said. \u201cDon\u2019t think for one split second that I\u2019m going to be all fluffy about police officers. If they break their oath, by God, they\u2019re not going to be a police officer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tonko pointed to his legislative record on mental health coverage and addiction treatment as examples of his impact at the federal level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve led the fight, a five, six-year fight, to make a difference for those who require services for mental illness or mental health disorders,\u201d Tonko said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voters in the Capital Region\u2019s 20th Congressional District are choosing between a longtime Democratic incumbent and a Republican…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[206,38490,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,55619,112,87,200],"class_list":["post-378579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-decision-2026","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-noah-love","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378579","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=378579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}