{"id":94919,"date":"2026-01-23T20:00:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/94919\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T20:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:00:29","slug":"former-wny-congressman-erie-county-executive-running-for-congress-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/94919\/","title":{"rendered":"Former WNY Congressman, Erie County Executive running for Congress in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) \u2014 Former Western New York Congressman and Erie County Executive Chris Collins is running for Congress in Florida, he announced Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Collins, who served the now-inactive 27th District from 2013-2019, resigned from Congress in October 2019 amid an insider trading scandal, which resulted in him <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wivb.com\/news\/crime\/chris-collins-arrives-at-manhattan-court\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:pleading guilty;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">pleading guilty<\/a> to federal charges. He served a little more than two months of a 26-month sentence in prison before he was pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.wivb.com\/news\/local-news\/collins-abbreviated-federal-prison-sentence-was-hell\/?ipid=promo-link-block1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Collins: Abbreviated federal prison sentence \u2018was hell\u2019;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\"> Collins: Abbreviated federal prison sentence \u2018was hell\u2019 <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Before Congress, Collins, 75, served one term as Erie County Executive from 2008-2011. During his tenure, the county was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged repeated civil rights violations of inmates at county facilities. The DOJ and Erie County co-signed an agreement to dismiss the case in 2011.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI was the first in Congress to endorse [Donald Trump],\u201d Collins wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CollinsFL19\/status\/2014679670537470413?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:social media post;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">social media post<\/a> on Friday morning. \u201cFrom DAY ONE, I had Trump\u2019s back \u2026 I helped President Trump start the fight in 2016. I\u2019m running for Congress to help him finish it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Florida\u2019s 19th Congressional District, a Republican stronghold that includes Fort Myers, Naples and Marco Island, is having an open election. Byron Donalds, who has held the office since 2021, is not running for re-election as he focuses on running for governor. Also running for the congressional seat is former North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn.<\/p>\n<p>Latest Local News\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Aidan Joly was named News 4\u2019s Digital Executive Producer in 2025. He has been on staff since 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wivb.com\/author\/aidan-joly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wivb.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) \u2014 Former Western New York Congressman and Erie County Executive Chris Collins is running for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[46600,14618,34,136,142,138,137,5918,46601],"class_list":{"0":"post-94919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-chris-collins","9":"tag-congressman","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-erie","12":"tag-erie-county","13":"tag-erie-headlines","14":"tag-erie-news","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-floridas-19th-congressional-district"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}