Central New York Republican Congressman Brandon Williams launched his reelection campaign for New York's 22nd Congressional District Tuesday evening.
Williams won the competitive Congressional seat in 2022 and acknowledges he has another hard election ahead of him in 2024 as voter turn out is typically higher for a presidential election. As for how he can hold onto his seat?
"The only thing you do is go out with a winning message and go out and meet the people where they are," Williams said. "That's exactly how I ran and won last time. I'll do exactly the same thing this time. It's not really about winning an election. It's about listening to, connecting with voters and being responsive to what's important to them."
The freshman Congressman served as a nuclear submarine engineer in the U.S. Navy.
Williams says priorities he's focused on for central New York and the Mohawk Valley are energy, infrastructure and manufacturing — saying these are the quality of life issues for the people in the district.
"I spent a lot of time as the chairman of the Energy Subcommittee for Science, Space and Technology looking at advanced energy and how we can have affordable and reliable energy," Williams said. "It's cold up here in the winter and it's becoming unaffordable to heat our homes for people that are on fixed income, for the elderly and for the 63% of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck."
Three Democrats have announced campaigns for the central New York Congressional seat: Sarah Klee Hood, Clemmie Harris and John Mannion. Williams says he believes people are seeing the cost of policies from the "progressive left."
"It's high inflation, it's high crime, it's an open border, those kinds of things," Williams said. "I don't hear anything other than more of the same from from the progressive left."
The 22nd Congressional District contains Onondaga, Madison and Oneida counties and a sliver of Oswego County. Williams does not live in the district saying he and his family are waiting for new district lines to be drawn before any potential move.
