As early voting in New York State continues and Election Day nears, WAMC's Lower Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Elias Guerra spoke with Republican Congressional Candidate Jackie Auringer about her campaign against incumbent Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan to represent New York's 18th District, which includes large parts of the mid-Hudson Valley.
They began the conversation by discussing Auringer's priorities if elected.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Auringer: I'm Jackie Mary Auringer. I am born and raised in the Hudson Valley. I'm running for Congress in New York's 18th district. I love it here. I work here, I live here, and I want to stay here. And, you know, I feel like right now the dream of staying here is becoming more like a nightmare every day. And we see our communities thinning out and I just, I really want to make it better here so that people do want to stay here.
So right now, I'm running on three pillars, and that is affordability, and that means cutting wasteful spending, lowering taxes, expanding healthcare, tackling this utility crisis that we have going on right now as well, and just rooting out, like, the waste fraud and abuse. And I'm also running on accountability, which means, you know, holding our leaders accountable for the things that they say versus the promises that they break, and the way that they go back to Washington and vote in ways that don't truly reflect the realities on the ground here for us, and the way that they also get rich in office while we are stuck footing the bill.
And the third thing I'm running on is opportunity. I think that we really need to start trying to boost our local economies, protecting and promoting small businesses and also investing in trade schools and trade skills and alternative education and STEM. So, because right now we, I think, we have a crisis going on with our children. And I really want my kids to at least be financially literate enough so that they can be independent and successful on their own and not depend on government for all of the support that they give.
Guerra: And you've already kind of addressed this, but of those three priorities, which would you say is your first if you were to take office?
Auringer: I think that they're all pretty much equally important and I think that they actually go hand in hand and that's kind of why I chose those three words because I think that they play off of each other, you know. If you want affordability, you need to create more jobs. So that goes with opportunity and that also helps boost the local economies. And I think that if you want to also keep the money, that you have for affordability, I think that you also need accountability. You need to know where the taxpayer dollars are going. So, I don't think that I could honestly say which one, because I think that they're all so entangled and intertwined.
Guerra: Fair enough. And I do want to address some of the headlines. You know, you left an interview with the Daily Freeman after a short appearance, and you declined to speak with the Times Union. But you have sat down with News12 Hudson Valley and taken part in some forums with various chambers of commerce. Can you tell me why you declined to speak with some of these outlets and also tell me a bit about your approach for getting your message to the voters?
Auringer: So, I didn't decline the Times Union interview, [it's] Just we hadn't responded in the time that they had asked. I didn't see that message. But I would have loved to speak with the Times Union and give them an interview. I just think that the time had passed in that area. And also with the Daily Freeman, for months I have been trying to get them to cover stories or show less bias towards. like. our situation here. And you know what? It got to the point where I figured that whatever they write is gonna be bad. So, I have nothing to lose here. And it was more so the fact that I also had other debates coming up in-person, and this one was not gonna be in-person. It was gonna be recorded, and I just could not trust at this point with all the knowledge that I had that they wouldn't edit the footage or anything like that, alter it and paint me in a bad light when I'm truly just trying to do the right thing here.
I'm not a career politician. I don't strive to be. I just want to be a civil servant. I'm truly doing this because my purpose in life is to serve others. And I figured the best way that I can do that right now at 29 years old was to get off my butt and just get out there and you know what? Make a difference. Stop complaining. Do the job. If you want it done, do it yourself.
I know that you asked what my approach was with this. So, I mean, it's a grassroots movement and you know I don't get, like, a lot of the free media like another person, like an incumbent would. And especially now in our media realm in this area, I would say that it does tend to swing to one party more so than the other. So, I've just been focused a lot on social media. We have a great ground game as well. We're hitting the doors hard and I'm going to every event and I'm not just going to Republican events. I'm going to independent events, Democrat events, like anywhere anybody is because I really don't care what your party is. I want you to vote for the right candidate, not based on your party.
Guerra: And what would you say is the biggest misconception about your campaign?
Auringer: You know, I don't know what the biggest misconception would be, but I definitely know that my opponent has pushed a lot of different narratives about me that are just so untrue. And I have been — I've been bribed for a better job if I drop out of the race. I've been sued for ballot access right before. So, I started this journey, $10,000 in the hole, to pay for attorneys. And, you know, I've been attacked, I've been bullied, my opponent sends out mailers all the time with such slanderous lies that —like, anything that I say about him, I can promise you I would never say it unless that there was truth to it.
But everything he says about me is just like these personal attacks that could not be further from who I am as a person. And he constantly says that I am this MAGA Mar-a-Lago person. But the only times I've been to Mar-a-Lago was for charity events, for organizations or causes that I truly wanted to support and in benefit of them. And it would be cancer, veterans, animal welfare, women, children, you know, it was never just to have billionaire fun.
And the only person that could afford a membership in Mar-a-Lago is him. I can't do that. So, I'm just trying to be a normal person that does better every day.
Guerra: And I understand it seems like a lot of your priorities and, you know, Congressman Pat Ryan's priorities are similar. A lot of folks are talking about affordability, right now. What would you say that you disagree most with your opponent, Congressman Pat Ryan?
Auringer: Well, a lot of the things that my opponent does is that he announces things and uses headlines that are not responsible language. We'll say, like, he delivered $6 million to local law enforcement when actually the grants haven't even passed the application deadline yet for literally applying just for those grants. So, I don't think that you should use language like that.
I think that we should be holding each other accountable for that because, you know, these communities, they really rely on that kind of money. And when it doesn't come through several years later, they're sitting there and they're wondering and they're asking. And that's a lot of the time when I'm out there and I'm talking to people, they're like, ‘Yeah, well, why don't you ask about our firehouse grant that was supposed to come through,’ or like just stuff like that. And then I looked into it. I dropped the Pat Ryan files last night, where I dissected every single thing of Pat's, like, life from the time that he left high school and what's contributed to where he got to today.
And I do think that we need to hold people accountable for the things that they do or the things that they say. And especially when they don't actually come to fruition. And a lot of the stuff has not come to fruition or it's taken too long or it's changed course and the original announcement is not what actually happened.
And I think that we can also get, like, [the] public involved. You know, we can have public tracking and records keeping where you see where a grant is in place and what it is in the process, how much money has been spent. And I just think that we need to hold it accountable to the taxpayer dollars.
