Onedebate has been scheduled so far in the race for New York's 23rd Congressional District, but the Democratic challenger is not satisfied with that. During an encounter in southern Erie County on Sunday, Aaron Gies challenged incumbent Republican Nick Langworthy to participate in additional live, in-person debates with voters across the district leading up to the election. Gies is calling for debates in communities across the district instead of limiting voters to a single, only-televised event. In response to Gies' challenge, Langworthy said, "I'll do any debates if the media suggests, but I'm not gonna play your game." Currently, the two are scheduled for a debate in early October to be hosted by a TV station in Elmira.
A video of the encounter, which was recorded and posted by the Gies campaign, can be seen below:
WDOE News reached out to a spokesperson for Langworthy, who provided the following statement in response to the video posted by the Gies campaign:
The only thing worse than the pathetic stunt from his floundering campaign was the wildly dishonest editing job on the video that conveniently omitted him being taken to task for his radical leftist views that are out of touch with the values of the Southern Tier. The Congressman looks forward to his agreed upon televised debate where he will contrast his record of common sense results with the Professor's extreme vision to remake America.
An unedited video of the exchange between Langworthy and Gies was also provided:
Loading the player ...
