The Latest in the 19th Congressional District

The final televised debate occurred last week between Republican incumbent Chris Gibson and the Democratic challenger Sean Eldridge. In the debate, Gibson took his chances attacking the creditability of rep. Sean Eldridge. Gibson constantly brought up how much money Eldridge has. Sean Eldridge is currently married to Chris Hughes, who is one of the co-founders of the social media website Facebook. Gibson went on to say that Eldridge’s wealth is one of the main reasons why he running in the 19^th district and he brought up the fact that Eldridge registered to run for congress before he even registered to vote. Eldridge responded by criticizing Gibson’s stand on the issues of fracking, abortion, campaign finance reform, minimum wage, and the recent farm bill. Eldridge went on to attack Gibson’s lack of bipartisanship and his strong allegiance to the Republican Party.

 

 (Left to right: Republican Chris Gibson, Democrat Sean Eldridge)

In the debate Liz Benjamin, the Time Warner Cable News Host made the notion that politics is currently setting up a system where only the wealthy can run for office. Which is funny as it reported that Democrat Sean Eldridge has put about $1.5 million of his own money into the campaign this month alone. In total he has raised about $5.48 million into the race, which is $2.5 million more than the Republican incumbent Chris Gibson. In response to that comment made by Benjamin, Eldridge responded saying he does not have to take money from PACs, or big oil companies, or Wall Street. Gibson quickly countered pointing out that Eldridge received money from Google executives and other corporate plutocrats. Brushing aside Gibson’s comments, Eldridge further explained his commitment to reform campaign financing and curbing the influence of wealth in politics.