Colleen Deacon, the Democratic nominee for Congress in New York state’s 24th congressional district, held a small campaign event in Syracuse University’s Watson Theatre on Wednesday.

The event was sponsored by Syracuse University’s College Democrats student group, not SU.

Deacon is currently trailing Republican incumbent John Katko by 19 points, according to a recent Time Warner Cable News/Siena College poll, and during the event appealed to students to vote and, if interested, volunteer or intern for her campaign in the final four weeks leading up to the election.

“Your voice really does matter, with elections, with issues, with concerns,” Deacon said to the roughly 30 students and local residents sitting in the theatre Wednesday evening.

Deacon, who is a former regional director in New York state Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) office and an SU alumna, briefly touched on national issues including concerns over resettling Syrian refugees, climate change and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. But the democratic candidate primarily spoke on local and regional issues she believes she could address if elected to Congress.

“Since I’ve been on this campaign trail, I’ll tell you guys, that jobs and the economy is the number one issue,” Deacon said. “It’s the number one issue that we hear about all over this region.”

One of Deacon’s main talking points was central New York’s economy, but also how college students face many difficulties with large amounts of student debt and a lack of job opportunities when entering the workforce.

“We need to make sure that we keep interest rates low, so that students aren’t having huge monthly payments every month,” Deacon said in an interview before the event. “I remember getting … my bill every month in the mail and, you know, it was hard. Especially after I first graduated with limited job opportunities.”

The congressional candidate also said the ability for students to consolidate loans with high interest rates after graduating is a proposal she would be happy to support if she is elected.

Deacon also spoke about the prevalence of sexual assaults on college campuses, a topic that resonated with audience members.

Lyla Rose, a junior television, radio and film major in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, agreed with Deacon, saying she believes sexual assault is a huge problem that is overlooked at SU.

Deacon also spoke frequently on the need for more women to enter politics, another issue Rose — who is a member of SU’s College Democrats — identified with.

“I’m hoping that she can make it into Congress, because, you know, it does seem like it would be great to get a woman into Congress because we’re so marginalized,” Rose said. “But, she’s 20 points down, so I don’t know. I’m definitely gonna vote for her.”

According to data compiled by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, 104 women held seats in Congress in 2015. Women comprised 20 percent of the Senate and 19.3 percent of the House of Representatives.

In a press conference before her speech, Deacon focused on her competing Congressional candidate Katko and the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying Katko did “too little too late” after telling Syracuse.com last Saturday he believes Trump should drop out of the race.

Katko’s statement came a day after The Washington Post and NBC News published a 2005 video of Trump making explicit and lewd comments against women.

Despite her focus on the two Republican candidates in the press conference, she rarely mentioned her competing congressional candidate in the speech to students, while not addressing Trump at all.

Published on October 12, 2016 at 11:38 pm

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek