A race shaped by the moment

Two Democratic candidates for New York’s 25th Congressional District agree that the 2026 election cycle is particularly important for the nation’s future.

“Every election matters, but the stakes in 2026 are especially high because the very foundations of our democracy are being tested. And when democracy is under strain, Congress has a responsibility to act,” says Rep. Joe Morelle, the incumbent since 2018.

“This administration has repeatedly undermined our democracy,” he adds. “The only meaningful constitutional check on that kind of overreach is a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. At its core, this election is about whether our government works for the American people or for those who seek to abuse power for personal gain.”

Robin Wilt, a former Brighton town board member who will challenge Morelle in the June Democratic primary, says, “the time we are in is particularly fraught.”

“People have a genuine sense of fear. There is an overall sense of fear that people think that they could be taken at any point,” she says. “So I think that people are looking for representatives who are going to stand up for our human rights, and I’m the one who has a history of standing up for human rights, not my opponent.”

While she recognizes the election’s high stakes, Wilt believes that she is the better leadership fit for this moment. She thinks Democratic party leaders have failed to oppose the current Republican administration effectively and that Morelle represents an ineffective establishment.

Wilt, who has cast herself as a left-leaning candidate throughout her career in government, allies with other local progressive-minded politicians such as County Legislator Rachel Barnhart and City Councilmember Mary Lupien. 

Wilt has run unsuccessfully for higher political office over the past decade. This is her third bid for this congressional seat.

“I think it’s not enough to just have flowery speeches and say that you’re in opposition to the current administration,” says Wilt. “I think we need to push back against the authoritarian rule of this government, and I just don’t see it happening with our current democratic leadership.”

In the next Congress, Morelle says, House Leader Hakeem Jeffries has tasked him with leading on anti-corruption measures, banning individual stock trading, overturning the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, and strengthening voting rights by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Morelle also mentions local efforts when it comes to Democratic leadership. Recent victories in Monroe and Ontario counties are evidence of resonation with the current Democratic Party and flipping Republican seats, he says.

“These candidates succeeded because they had a message that resonated with voters and because they put in the work to meet people where they are,” Morelle says. “Many of those same leaders will be on the ballot again this November, and I’m excited to campaign alongside them as we continue building on the progress Democrats have made across Monroe and Ontario counties.”

Morelle further emphasizes his legislative effectiveness by stating that his office helped resolve 690 constituent cases, responded to 102,000 constituent inquiries and returned more than $15 million to residents across the district last year. He also highlights his role in securing $40 million through the Regional Technology Hub Program, which aims to create an innovation corridor connecting Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse.

“I have always believed that the first responsibility of any member of Congress is to serve the people who sent you there. That is the standard I have tried to meet every day, and I’m proud of what my office has been able to deliver for our community,” says Morelle.  “We have made real progress, but I believe our greatest accomplishments are still ahead of us.”

Sherita Traywick, a pastor and the founder of Young & Gifted Ministries, also announced her candidacy for the seat in January. Traywick previously ran for a seat in the state Senate in 2020, losing the Democratic primary to Jeremy Cooney. She did not respond in time for inclusion in this article.

Democratic district

District 25 covers all of Monroe County, as well as a section of Ontario County, including the towns of Victor and East Bloomfield. Although it has gone through multiple configurations over the years, the area covering Monroe has remained solidly blue. Louise Slaughter held the seat continuously from 1987 until her death in 2018.

Since 2012, an average of 40 percent of all active enrolled voters in the district were registered Democrats. In contrast, the rolls of registered Republicans have fallen since then, from 29.7 percent in 2012 to 25.6 percent in 2026.

This means that whoever wins the Democratic primary in June will likely win the general election. Since 2018, Morelle has received at least 54 percent of total votes. He beat his Republican opponent, Gregg Sadwick, with 60 percent of the vote in 2024.

Morelle has several natural advantages after eight years in office, including connections to established national political leaders and a sizable war chest. He has raised over $1 million and had $630,309 cash on hand as of the latest Federal Election Commission disclosures.

Wilt faces an uphill battle in this primary. For strategic reasons, her campaign said it will not release fundraising totals until the next FEC disclosure deadlines. In her previous runs for the seat, Wilt raised $76,689 and $162,165 in 2018 and 2020.

In addition, this is Wilt’s one shot at securing a place on the general election ballot. Morelle received an endorsement from the Working Families Party, which prevents her from running as a third-party candidate.

“I am definitely the candidate that is most aligned with the Working Families Party’s values,” she says. “If you look at their questionnaire, it’s very clear that I am 100 percent aligned with the party’s platform.”

Contrary to those odds, Wilt sees these factors as strengths.

“I think the strength of a grassroots campaign can be better leveraged today than at any time during history,” she says. “People are really looking critically at candidates who are taking money from corporate interests, because I think if you trace the source of donations to our members of Congress, it becomes very clear why we have a plutocracy. I think people are looking for candidates of integrity.”

Election histories

Morelle’s experience in elected office dates back to 1984, when he was first elected to the Monroe County Legislature to a district primarily in Irondequoit.

Seven years later, he won a state Assembly seat that covered the towns of Brighton and Irondequoit, and portions of southeast and northern Rochester. He held it until running in the special election to replace Slaughter in 2018.

That year, his opponents in the Democratic primary were Barnhart, former City Councilmember Adam McFadden, and Wilt, who was serving her first term on the Brighton town board.

He won the election handily with 45.6 percent of the vote. The only areas where Morelle did not receive the largest share were in the Crescent neighborhoods of Rochester (the northeast, northwest and southwest sections) where McFadden fared the strongest. Wilt came in a distant third in that race.

In 2020, in a second primary challenge, Morelle won 66.5 percent to Wilt’s 31.1 percent. The Democratic primary had a notably high turnout of 32 percent that year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, possibly due to the presidential election cycle.

Wilt’s political ambitions have been apparent since 2010. In that year, she lost a race for state Senate to Republican Joe Robach.

In 2018, after losing the Congressional primary to Morelle, Wilt attempted another primary run at his now vacated state Assembly seat. Wilt dropped out before the election, saying a racist incident within the Brighton school system compelled her to stay with the town board in order to fix the issue. At the same time, Wilt said an ongoing challenge to her residency status in the district played no part in her decision to drop out of the Assembly race.

Despite previous outcomes, Wilt believes that 2026 is an entirely new political climate suited to the progressive message she has long held.

During her time on the Brighton town council, for instance, Wilt’s public pro-Palestinian stance upset some residents. A 2022 appearance on WXXI’s Connections prompted the group Brighton Stands Against Antisemitism to release a statement saying she made false claims about the conflict in Gaza.

That same year, she added her voice to a Democratic coalition against a proposed redistricted Monroe County map. The group, which included Barnhart, County Legislator Sabrina LaMar, and the Rev. Myra Brown, argued that the map proposed by County Executive Adam Bello was discriminatory toward minority voters because of the city’s boundaries.

Bello is viewed as a close ally of Morelle in local left-leaning circles. For example, Barnhart recently linked the two after Monroe County opted out of creating a registry for short-term rentals, such as those through Airbnb. She claims this was decided because Morelle’s son Nicholas lobbied for Airbnb and received “extraordinary access to county officials.”)

Immigration on the ballot

With the federal crackdown on immigration, the subject has become a key issue for many voters. Last year, a raid on the Asia Food Market in Henrietta and the detainment of La Casa restaurant owner Omar Ramos Jimenez sparked rallies. More recently, plans to relocate the Rochester Border Patrol office to the Federal Building downtown have also drawn public attention. Morelle spoke out against those plans, linking them to a strategy of escalation by the current administration.

“Our community will not be treated as a staging ground for this administration’s reckless political agenda,” he says. “My office continues working directly with community organizations and families impacted by ICE to help protect their safety and connect them with legal and advocacy support.”

Morelle believes meaningful immigration reform, which can create “fair and lawful” pathways to citizenship, is essential for the future. This must be coupled with stronger oversight and accountability for agents, something he says he has been pushing for years. 

“(In 2020) I demanded answers about serious allegations of medical neglect and human rights violations in ICE detention facilities,” he says. “More recently, I voted against (Department of Homeland Security) funding legislation because it lacked meaningful oversight of ICE, failed to include real accountability measures, and ignored the urgent need for reform.”

The House passed the 2026 DHS Appropriations Act over “nay” votes from Morelle and other Democrats. Since then, the bill has stalled in the Senate.

Wilt, however, accuses Morelle of being a “consistent backer” of ICE. She points to a June 2025 resolution after a pro-Palestine terrorist attack in Boulder, Colo. The resolution condemns the attack and antisemitism, as well as expressing gratitude to ICE officers for “protecting the homeland.” Wilt criticizes the latter.

Wilt also finds fault with Morelle for voting in favor of the Laken Riley Act last year. The act expands the mandatory detention of undocumented immigrants to include those who are arrested for local offenses such as burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting. Progressives claim the bill is extremely reactive and will lead to racial profiling and waste enforcement resources.

“When you sign on to the Laken Riley Act, what you’re doing is dehumanizing immigrants. You’re calling them criminals, and you’re saying that they are part of the problem as opposed to being our neighbors and our friends and our coworkers,” Wilt says.

“(Morelle) has been one of the complicit representatives who has voted to increase their budget beyond that of the Marine Corps,” she continues. “It took him most of a year to comment on Omar Ramos Jimenez’s detention by ICE. So I think it’s clear that he is not going to address these issues unless pressed. It’s that type of appeasement to which I say no more.” 

Wilt says altering ICE training will not change the situation and instead supports fully ending it. She believes that the focus should be on creating effective pathways to citizenship instead of enforcement.

“Right now, our court systems are overwhelmed, and when we have people showing up and doing the work to adhere to our immigration processes and then being disappeared from those court dates, it has a chilling effect,” she says. “I think we should abolish ICE. As an agency, it has only existed since 2003. For the first 150 years of this country’s existence, we had open borders, and the country certainly didn’t fall apart. 

“That was a time of extremely broad expansion of our economy, of our cultural and social systems. So it’s not the end of the world to have less enforcement and a fair path to integration for everyone.”

Easing price pain

Affordability is another focus for both candidates. Prices for essentials such as housing, utilities, food and medical care have risen faster than incomes for American households in recent years.

Wilt says the problem has grown worse due to actions taken by President Trump—specifically, his tariff policy and “military adventurism” in Venezuela and Iran. She believes Democratic leadership should hit back harder against these actions, using the War Powers Act, and decrease military spending overall.

“We’re already seeing oil that is in excess of $100 a barrel, and there’s no timeline for extracting ourselves from the conflict in Iran. So we don’t know how much worse things are going to get,” she says. “All this is all in service to corporate masters, right? The fossil fuel industry is a corporate driver of this military expansion.”

To ease price pain, Wilt wants to create an “economy of opportunity” with social uplift programs to create jobs by building infrastructure and education. This should be done alongside raising the federal minimum wage and the individual tax rate for the highest earners, she says. 

Wilt views the housing crisis as a supply-and-demand issue and calls for more building. At the same time, she wants to avoid cuts to programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Morelle says he has been focused on affordability and will continue to be in the future. For example, The Child Care for Every Community Act, introduced last year, would expand access to universal childcare and early learning programs like Head Start. The American Family Act would also help families by expanding the Child Tax Credit.

“Addressing affordability means making sure people have access to good-paying jobs, affordable childcare, stable housing, quality healthcare, and the basic economic security every family deserves,” Morelle says.

He also supports the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour by 2030, and backs the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which would finance nearly 1.6 million additional affordable rental homes over the next decade.

“We also must protect programs like Medicaid and SNAP that millions of families rely on for healthcare and food security,” Morelle adds.

Political contributions

While Wilt has not released any financials yet, she has pledged not to accept money from corporate political action committees. Her campaign states she has taken the Candidate Integrity Pledge from the advocacy group Money Out of Politics.

“I think a lot of the sources of Morelle’s money have come under scrutiny by the members of the public,” says Wilt. “And I think in a lot of the cases of his policy decisions, you can trace it back to his funding sources.”

Morelle agrees that reforming the campaign finance system should be a top priority. In fact, he says, Jeffries has asked him to lead the effort to overturn Citizens United if Democrats retake the chamber.

However, he strongly disagrees that money has influenced his decisions as a congressman.

“My votes and legislative priorities are guided by the interests of the people I represent and by the law, not by campaign contributions,” he says.

Wilt says Morelle’s relationship to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is an example. The lobby has a pro-Israel stance, supporting its military and right to self-defense while opposing the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement and any nuclear deal with Iran.

In recent years, the acceptance of AIPAC money has become a hot-button topic driven primarily by left-leaning progressives. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Rep. Jamaal Bowman are among the politicians who have publicly pledged to reject AIPAC money.

“I think it’s clear that (Gaza) is an ongoing genocide,” Wilt says. “And if somebody doesn’t have the moral fiber to say that that was wrong, then that’s what leads to more conflagrations like Iran. If we need to, stand up and say, ‘This is wrong, we shouldn’t be bombing a school, whether it’s in Gaza or it’s in Iran.’”

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Morelle expressed his support for Israel’s right to self-defense and announced resources available for U.S. citizens traveling abroad in that country. Last year, he praised the Gaza ceasefire deal and posted a Facebook picture at a meeting with AIPAC advocates.

“I always look forward to connecting with the dedicated advocates at AIPAC,” the caption reads.  “Our joint commitment remains clear: to protect and strengthen the enduring bond between the United States and Israel.”

According to the most recent Federal Election Commission disclosures, Morelle received 25 donations for $23,200 from AIPAC in the 2025-2026 reporting period. That amount represents 4.6 percent of the $499,035 total in PAC money listed for Morelle.

AIPAC was the second-largest amount of PAC money for Morelle, behind the 98 donations for $27,535 from ActBlue, an online fundraising platform for Democratic campaigns.

“Supporters contribute because they believe in the work we are doing, but those contributions do not shape policy or influence the decisions I make in Congress,” Morelle reiterates. “Public service requires independence, transparency and accountability to the voters we serve, and that principle guides my work every day.”

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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