Democratic congressional candidate Josh Riley said he raised $696,556 in the fourth quarter of 2023, his campaign announced Thursday.

That brings his yearly fundraising total to more than $2 million and he enters this election year with more than $1.45 million in cash on hand.

“I’m so grateful for the outpouring of grassroots support our campaign has received,” Riley said in a statement. “I’ll always fight for Upstate New Yorkers, and I’ll never take a penny from the corporate PACs that bribe politicians to do their bidding in Congress.”

Riley, born in Broome County who now lives in Ithaca, served as a staff assistant for former Rep. Maurice Hinchey’s office, as a policy analyst at the U.S. Department of Labor and counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He is running for a second time in New York's 19th Congressional District, currently held by Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro. Riley came within 2 points of defeating Molinaro in 2022.

Meanwhile, Molinaro formally announced his bid Friday for a second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Past filings with the Federal Election Commission show that, as of the end of September, Molinaro’s campaign had about $1.3 million cash on hand. That total does not include fundraising from the fourth quarter.

Democrat Dan Buttermann, who previously ran for the state Assembly, has also filed to run for the seat.

The 19th Congressional District stretches from the Massachusetts border west to include parts of the Hudson Valley and Southern Tier, and includes the cities of Binghamton and Ithaca. It is part of a trifecta of House races in the Hudson Valley that were close in the 2022 midterm elections.

(Spectrum News 1 graphic)

Since Republicans flipped two of those seats, and with the GOP having a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, the region will likely see major support and attention from both parties next year as control of the chamber could be in play once again.

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