Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko and Republican Ralph Ambrosio faced off on the debate stage Thursday as Election Day nears. The candidates are vying to represent New York's 20th Congressional District. WAMC's Sajina Shrestha was on the panel of reporters asking the candidates questions. She joined WAMC's Sam Dingman and Annie Bennett on Northeast Notebook Live to break down the evening.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Bennett: OK, Sajina, let's start by talking about how you came to be a panelist for this debate because it seems like it's kind of a remarkable story.
Shrestha: So it's actually funny because WMHT is located in Troy, and I was in the city of Troy, headed home, when I got this call from the [WAMC] news director, Andrew Waite, and he called me and he's like, "Hey, everything's OK, but we might need you to step in and be one of the panelists for this debate. Can you get ready?"
Dingman: And we should say this happened because the WAMC person who was going to be a panelist on the debate, [Capital Region Bureau Chief] Grant Ashley, got into a car accident. He's completely fine; everything's OK. But that's why it was such a mad dash to get you there.
Shrestha: Um, and by around that time, it was an hour and a half before the debate.
Dingman: Oh my goodness!
Shrestha: Yes, and I was thinking, "You know what? Yeah, I'll probably have like an hour to prepare." And then he was like, you know, "Your [managing] editor, Andrew Pugliese, will call you, and he will give you all the details." Andrew Pugliese calls me right after, and he goes, "I am picking you up in 20 minutes." I was 20 minutes away from home, so it was quite crazy. And I was like, "Hey, can I get a little bit more time?" And he was, and Andrew Pugliese said, "I don't really think so because you were supposed to be in the studio 30 minutes ago." I had just found out that I was supposed to be there, right? But thankfully, I got to the studio at least an hour ahead. I was able to just — I don't know how — by the grace of whatever was out there, I was able to get my questions. Somehow, we made it through, guys.
Dingman: The journalism gods were smiling.
Shrestha: Yeah.
Dingman: Well, let's talk about the actual debate. We'll start at a high level, Sajina. The two candidates that we're facing off, of course, were incumbent Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko. He has held his seat since 2009. He's been in elected office for decades. He's been challenged by Republican Ralph Ambrosio, who's a former state police officer. He's also worked as a county and state prosecutor. Talk a little bit about what you observed as the dynamic between these two guys,
Shrestha: Right. So definitely, Tonko focused a lot on himself and his tenure as a congressman. You know, you touched on how he's been in that seat since 2009, and he thinks that, you know, all of that is a good record of his work that he's done. He talked a lot about the work he's done, not only in the seat but also in the local offices that he's held. That was something he touched on a lot. He talked about himself a lot. Now Ambrosio, like you said, he's coming in new, so he definitely came in strong and heavy on Tonko. He had this kind of a two-pronged approach where he talked about himself and his campaign promises, but he definitely went for Tonko a lot. He, on the other hand, doesn't think Tonko's long tenure is a pro. He kind of thinks it's a little bit of a negative rather than a positive. For him, it was definitely like, you've been here long enough; it is time for a newcomer.
Bennett: So, I would love to hear about some of the key moments that you observed through this. So Ambrosio talked a lot about what he describes as Tonko's obsession with government regulation, including on the economy?
Shrestha: Yeah, I mean Ambrosio's biggest stance was definitely let the government step back. He essentially was very much like, we need to let things regulate themselves. One of the ways he showed that was with gas prices.
Ambrosio: But if you let the private sector work, you're noticing BJ's and Costco have already addressed the high price of gasoline. There are gallons of gasoline being sold for under $3.15 right now. You've got to leave the economy alone. It will self-rectify, and it has done it for years. It has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system of government.
Shrestha: I mean, it's also in the way that he talked about Supreme Court decisions, where he was very much like, hey, Supreme Court needs to do what it does. We don't need to meddle, and we don't need to worry about if they're doing their job. They just need to be doing their job. We're fine on our own.
Watch the full NY-20 debate here:
Dingman: Yeah, that was interesting. He was pointing to the idea that has been proposed by some on the left of expanding the Supreme Court, or I believe Tonko last night talked about the possibility of instituting term limits for the Supreme Court. Ambrosio characterized that as part of Tonko's instinct towards even more regulation.
Shrestha: Yeah, so Tonko definitely pushed heavy on regulations, which Ambrosio saw as a negative. But for Tonko, he seemed like those were what he wants to stand on. He talked about the restructuring of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the mask ban and 287(g) agreement, like here.
Tonko: The law enforcement community, the local enforcement community, has a great connection to the residents that they serve. They know their community. I think this group comes in and disrupts that relationship. Further, our law enforcement people don't wear masks. We know who they are. They have badges on. We know who they are. This whole secretive notion of ICE is very disruptive, and I don't want them draining resources from our local law enforcement officials.
Shrestha: And then he talked about also the Iran war and how there needs to be more checks and balances in the government, specifically with, you know, the war powers resolution and how we even got into this war in the first place. And he even talked about reining in the sports betting industry. In all these different questions, Tonko definitely took the stance of we need to mitigate what's coming out of the White House, and we need to do it in a way through local and federal government rather than what Ambrosio stands is, which is leave it alone.
Bennett: OK, so in this vein, we also heard Ambrosio consistently use this phrase, "nanny state."
Ambrosio: Congress has turned our government into — rather than an objective observer of our lives — it has interfered and been involved heavily in our lives, and the more nanny state, heavily induced regulation — or not heavily induced, but heavily regulated lives causes people anger. They want the government out of their lives.
Shrestha: You know, it goes back to what Ambrosio is touching on throughout this whole debate, where he definitely thinks that New York has kind of become this over-regulating, overseeing body in people's lives.
Bennett: Like a nanny
Shrestha: Exactly. Very much, he thinks that we're taking the hand of the New York resident too much.hTey need to be left alone, especially in the, you know, way we see with data centers and also the way we think about energy prices. In every one of these arguments, he's definitely seen that the con is that New York government has stepped in too much.
Dingman: Alright. Well, finally, Sajina, you just mentioned data centers, and I want to come back to the kind of odd circumstance under which you became a panelist, because there was, in my mind, a very interesting moment in the debate. You also mentioned that there was a whole exchange about online sports gambling, which is more of a national issue. And after they had that exchange, you spoke up with this question about data centers, and you explicitly said, you know, I want to bring this back to a local issue that is affecting the district that you guys are competing to represent. Talk about that moment and what was going through your mind in bringing up that question.
Shrestha: Yeah, I mean, there's a fight happening right now in Tonko's backyard with the Kenwood local site [in Albany] and the data center there, and I thought it would be a really great way to bring this conversation back into the focus of this congressional district.
Dingman: And we should say just briefly, Sajina, how did each candidate respond to that question?
Shrestha: Well, Tonko definitely touched on how he went to these sites, he went to the neighborhood, and he talked to people there. He took the stance of, hey, like I'm listening to my constituents' concerns. Ambrosio, on the other hand, definitely touched on a data center coming into a town, not in New York State, that he believed was definitely a way that can work.
Ambrosio: There is a place in Virginia — Loudon County, Virginia. And Loudoun County, Virginia, has figured out a way to install AI data centers, which gives the Loudon County, Virginia, county revenue 39% of its necessary revenue.
Shrestha: And he thinks that there's a way that the towns can actually benefit from having a data center there.
Bennett: I'm curious. I feel like a lot of times after debates like these, you hear a lot of coverage about who won. And I'm curious, like, based on the chatter around after the debate, is there sort of a general consensus about, like, who performed better in this?
Shrestha: It definitely felt like Tonko was a little bit more calm about the debate, but you know, that could read as failing, you know. But definitely Ambrosio was head-on and heavy. A lot of the times, he wasn't looking at the camera. He was looking at Tonko directly. He was addressing Tonko directly. He was addressing us, the panelists, directly. Whereas Tonko was looking at the camera a lot, almost like he was projecting to the crowd and to listeners and viewers. And I could say that is kind of, in a nutshell, how that debate can be symbolized because Tonko is definitely focusing on himself and getting that message across, whereas Ambrose used more on the side of, hey, you've been here long enough. It is time for us to move on.
