Gies holds fourth town hall of 100 at Portville LIbrary

By RICK MILLER

Olean Star

PORTVILLE — Four down, 96 to go.

Democratic congressional candidate Aaron Gies of Olean held his fourth town hall Thursday night before about 20 people at the Portville Library. 

He’s scheduled 100 town halls over the next 82 days before the midterm elections, where he’s challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Langworthy of Pendleton in Niagara County.

A professor at St. Bonaventure University, Gies has taken a leave to run for Congress in the 23rd Congressional District on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines.

Introduced by his wife, Katie, she said the campaign is “about building a good life for everyone.”

Keis said he was raised in a working class family where his parents taught him “to treat other people the way I wanted to be treated. The best leaders I’ve ever known have followed that rule.”

In this economy, “Rural communities are struggling. Working class families are struggling to afford the necessities of life,” Gies said.

“The ultra wealthy in this country control the social media algorithms that keep us angry and divided, and the AI data centers are sucking up our water and power,” Gies said. “And they control the politicians who are getting rich off of insider trading, who cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations while they cut Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP and VA benefits.”

Nick Langworthy, Gies said, “works for them.”

Gies said the country needs to reject the politics of greed and “we need to make life affordable to everyone.”

He said the Trump administration plans to change Social Security to a 401k plan because without any changes to the program, it will become insolvent by 2032. “I advocate removing the $176,000 cap on the Social Security tax,” he said. “We are going to have to fight cuts.”

Gies said he also opposed the big beautiful bill Republicans passed last year that took $800 billion from Medicaid and will result in more nursing homes and hospitals closing in the 23rd district. He said he favored a single payer healthcare system.

Some of the questions from the audience were delivered in the form of a rant — much over President Trump’s wasteful spending.

Gies responded by saying that “corruption in government dwarfs anything that has gone on before.” Trump made $2.2 billion last year — $1.4 billion of it from crypto, he said, noting people often used it to buy pardons or for transacting favors.

“If I get elected in November, it means we flipped the House (because) this is a pretty conservative district. If democrats win in November, “we will have accountability” not only for Trump’s actions, but cabinet members “who broke the law.”

And Gies blasted Trump and Republicans for being responsible for over half of the nation’s $39 trillion in debt. “So I don’t want anyone for the rest of my life to tell me that Republicans are the fiscally responsible party.” Nick Langworthy, he noted “campaigned on cutting spending and making Washington accountable again. He has done the opposite. We have to get spending under control.”

Gies closed by saying the town hall was the fourth of 100 before election day. He started on Aug. 6 in Jamestown. A list of the town halls is available on the campaign website aaronforny23.com. 

Gies said that while only one debate between him and Langworthy is scheduled — Aug. 6, hosted by WETM-TV in Elmira — the two campaigns are discussing an invitation from WBEN radio, and possibly others.

“The way that we win this race is by flipping independent and unaffiliated votes,” Gies said. “And we’re going to try to get those voters to a town hall. We’re going to try to knock on their door.”