Canandaigua councilmember to run for state office
CANANDAIGUA, NY — Canandaigua City Councilmember Michael Mills is launching a campaign to run for state senator.
Mills, a Democrat who was elected to City Council in 2023 and represents the city's Ward 1, would run in 2026 for the state Senate's 54th District seat.
The office is currently held by state Sen. Pam Helming, a Republican who is former Canandaigua town supervisor. Helming was first elected to the seat in 2016.
The district includes Ontario, Wayne and Livingston counties and parts of Monroe County.
In a statement, Mills said the Finger Lakes region is renowned for wine and beer makers, farms that feed New York and the country, and a re-emerging manufacturing and logistics sector that delivers everything from consumer merchandise to optics equipment for solar system exploration.
But, Mills stated, the region is facing challenges that include affording groceries and rent, access to quality education and health care, and securing the funds to repair aging infrastructure or protect natural resources, lakes and waterways.
'And our way of life is threatened by decision makers and businesses who exploit the Finger Lakes as a waste dump, crypto mine, and energy source that powers the rest of the state (and Canada) but not our homes and communities,' Mills said in a statement. 'This district is not immune to the partisan divide currently cleaving America. But I believe that our residents, and Americans generally, want the same thing: an on-ramp to hope and opportunity for themselves and generations to come.'
Mills is a graduate of Hobart College in Geneva. He and his wife Audrey have a preschool-aged son Lewis and live in Canandaigua.
Mills has owned Involvement, Inc., a communications and coaching company that helps nonprofit and business clients engage stakeholders to deliver positive outcomes, and individuals hone their leadership skills.
Mills has worked in policy and economic development across agriculture, technology, retail, finance and environmental sustainability sectors at local, state, federal and international levels.
Mills would run for state office in 2026.
The coming city election this year is shaping up to be an active one, as three of five seats on City Council will be contested.
Republican Mayor Bob Palumbo is facing a challenge from Democratic Councilmember Thomas Lyon, who is serving as an at-large councilmember.
Councilmembers Sim Covington, Doug Merrill and Gwen Van Laeken are also seeking re-election to at-large seats. Merrill and Van Laeken ran last fall to serve out the remainder of the terms of two former councilmembers. The Democrats also endorsed John 'JT' Squires for the fourth at-large seat up this year.
Republicans are backing two candidates, Ron Ouimette and Jadon Hoffman.
Each of the seats carries a four-year term.
Mike Murphy covers Canandaigua and other communities in Ontario County and writes the Eat, Drink and Be Murphy food and drink column. Follow him on X at @MPN_MikeMurphy.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Canandaigua Councilmember Michael Mills to seek state office
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
18 minutes ago
- New York Post
Vermont Democrat slammed over ‘disturbing' argument for more immigration: ‘We're not going to have anyone around to wipe our a–es'
Rep. Becca Balint (R-Vt.) has come under fire for suggesting President Trump's immigration crackdown will leave Vermonters without 'anyone around to wipe our a–es.' The congresswoman made the outrageous claim — which she herself called 'crude' — during a town hall in Newport, Vt., last week, in response to a question about US immigration policy. 'Our economy is completely bound up in immigration and migrant labor,' Balint told her constituents. 'We have to come to a place in Congress where it is no longer a political issue, but we see it as an existential issue for the country.' Advertisement 'If we don't have avenues for people to come here legally to work or to build a home here, I'm going to be really crude right now — we're not going to have anybody around to wipe our a–es because we don't have enough people in our country now to fill the jobs that we have.' 3 Balint made the crude comment during a town hall in Vermont on May 28. Becca Balient/YouTube 'We also want to make sure that we have an adult conversation in Congress' about immigration, Vermont's sole congressional rep continued. Advertisement Vermont Republican Party Chairman Paul Dame demanded that Balint apologize to Vermont's immigrant community for the 'disturbing sentiment' expressed in her remarks. 'Congresswoman Balint should apologize — not only for her crude choice of words, but more importantly for the disturbing sentiment that the primary purpose of immigration is to perform labor that she deems beneath the dignity of others,' Dame said in a statement. 3 Vermont's GOP chairman demanded Balint apologize for the remark. Becca Balient/YouTube 'At the heart of these remarks is an opinion so offensive and so profoundly out of touch that it reveals a fundamental lack of respect for those who come to this country — abiding by the rules — in pursuit of freedom, opportunity, and a better life,' he added. Advertisement Dame noted that immigrants in the Green Mountain State have held 'remarkable careers in high-tech fields,' served as 'world-class physicians' in Vermont hospitals, and are 'critical to our small business community, providing a wide array of goods and services that enrich our state.' 'The way Congresswoman Balint reduced Vermont's hard-working legal immigrants to little more than 'a– wipers' is embarrassing,' the GOP chairman argued. 'She owes them — and all Vermonters — an apology for such a shameful characterization.' 3 Balint, a former teacher, has served in the House of Representatives since 2023. AP The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) highlighted Balint's comments on Wednesday, arguing that the congresswoman was promoting 'open borders.' Advertisement 'While complaining about President Trump deporting illegal immigrants, Vermont Democrat Becca Balint claims: 'We're not going to have anyone around to wipe our a–es.' Democrats' goal is, was and always will be open borders,' the NRCC wrote on X. Mark Coester, the congresswoman's 2026 GOP opponent for Vermont's at-large congressional district, quipped that 'from this day forward,' Balint 'will not be remembered only for her incompetence but more for her INCONTINENCE.' 'We all have accidents in life but no Vermont residents ever required illegals to clean up a messy accident,' Coester wrote on X. Balint's office did not respond to The Post's request for comment.
Politico
26 minutes ago
- Politico
Centrist Democrats are convinced they hold the answers to their party's problems
Democrats are still staring down bleak polling numbers about their party's brand, even as President Donald Trump's favorability also has dropped. The answer to Democrats' troubles at WelcomeFest, the moderate Democrats' Coachella, include: purity tests are toxic, being unpopular on the social media site Bluesky is cool and winning again means running to the center. That's the gospel speakers preached on stage Wednesday in the basement of a Washington, D.C., hotel, where hundreds of centrist elected officials, candidates and operatives gathered to commiserate over the 2024 election results and chart their version of the path forward for the Democratic Party. 'There's a hunger for people to work together, to try to find solutions and to talk in common sense terms,' said Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), who won a much-heralded special election in 2024 by calling out his own party on immigration policies. 'I think that there's a lot more elected officials that are willing to speak up about that because they don't want to lose,' Suozzi told reporters after his appearance. Wednesday's daylong conference, which represented a who's-who of center-left Democratic politics, from analytics guru David Shor to Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin to New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, was the latest sign that moderate Democrats believe they are ascendant in the party, looking to influence its posture heading into the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential primary. Seven of the 12 House Democrats who won in Trump districts last year participated in the event, including Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Adam Gray of California. 'Most Americans are Blue Dogs,' Gluesenkamp told writer Matt Yglesias, and noted only 10 Democrats remain in the once-robust Blue Dog Caucus. 'Politics has become irrelevant to most people because it has excluded the things that touch their life. It's about making politics more relevant to more people.' But the rifts within the Democratic Party are still evident. Speakers railed against progressive groups like Justice Democrats, Our Revolution and Indivisible, who they said forced the party into unwinnable positions — and weren't focused on winning majorities. 'When you read the documents of the national Indivisible group, they spell it right out, as plain as day, that they're throwing out the Blue Dogs and New Dems,' said Golden. 'Their goal is to divide the Democratic coalition until they are 100 percent in the image of the progressive caucus.' Progressives, for their part, called WelcomeFest a 'convention of corporate ghouls' that represents 'a massive step backwards for a Democratic Party that just lost working-class voters at a historic level,' said Usamah Andrabi, Justice Democrats communications director. 'Everyday people are not interested in elitist, technocratic, piecemeal solutions to the massive crises they're facing. They just rejected that exact Democratic Party in November,' Andrabi said. 'Voters want to see a Democratic Party that unites the working class against the handful of billionaires and corporations robbing them blind.' Andrabi also noted that Justice Democrats focus on safe Democratic House primaries, not competitive seats. Liam Kerr, a co-founder of Welcome PAC, which launched in 2022, said now that the 'leftist fever dreams died down,' they're growing a movement with 'a sense of, 'We need to think differently, we need to do things differently.'' 'It's attracting a lot of people who are kind of a full generation behind the last wave of centrist Democratic entrepreneurs,' Kerr added. Data analyst Lakshya Jain kicked off the opening presentation by arguing that Janelle Stelson, a Democrat who challenged Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), was a better performing candidate than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in 2024. 'This seems like a really controversial idea on Twitter, but I suggest that the Democratic Party take lessons on how to win elections and how to win voters from people who have won more votes than most other Democrats,' Jain said to applause. 'If we run candidates that D.C. finds appealing, we're probably going to lose. There's an inverse correlation between what you guys all find appealing and what the median voter finds appealing.' And like any other Democratic event in 2025, WelcomeFest was interrupted by protesters, who shouted at Torres during his interview. They were played off by the producers of the event, who blasted Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain.'
Time Magazine
31 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill' Stumbles in Senate as Musk Ramps Up Bid to ‘Kill' It
President Donald Trump's sprawling tax-and-spending proposal—touted as the centerpiece of his second-term agenda—is facing intensifying resistance in the Senate, as fresh concerns about its impact on the deficit and a ramped-up campaign by Elon Musk to torpedo the entire package threaten to derail the legislation's fragile path to passage. At the center of the turmoil on Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' is a sobering new assessment from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which reported Wednesday that the bill would add $2.4 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade while stripping health coverage from nearly 11 million Americans, largely through deep Medicaid cuts and the imposition of new work requirements. That analysis sparked alarm among some Senate Republicans, several of whom are demanding substantial changes. 'I think Congress is sort of like a bad behaving teenager when it comes to spending,' Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, one of the Republicans threatening to vote against the bill, told TIME on Wednesday. 'If you had a teenager that you were giving $100 a week and they wasted all of it on gambling or on booze, would you give them $200?' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and other prominent Republicans tried to dismiss the CBO's projections by arguing its analysis was flawed or biased. But fiscal hawks in the Senate remained dug in, buoyed by former Trump advisor Elon Musk, who extended his all-out offensive against the bill. A day after using his vast social media reach to brand the bill a 'disgusting abomination,' he posted more than two dozen messages on X on Wednesday attacking the legislation, as well as urging his followers to call Congress and 'KILL the BILL.' Musk's ire appears especially focused on how the bill's expansion of the deficit would erase the cost-cutting he hoped to accomplish with the Department of Government Efficiency, which he led under the Trump Administration. He has also expressed concerns with provisions in the House-passed bill that would terminate clean energy tax credits and electric vehicle subsidies established under the Inflation Reduction Act. Tesla Energy, Musk's solar and battery company, has warned that ending those credits 'would threaten America's energy independence and the reliability of our grid.' The sharp reversal has blindsided some Republicans, who were counting on Musk's tacit support. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has spearheaded the bill's passage, tried to stem the fallout by reaching out to Musk directly. 'I hope he comes around,' Johnson said Wednesday, though he added that Musk has not returned his call. Inside the Senate, Johnson's broader strategy—pushing through House priorities quickly and with minimal changes—is beginning to unravel. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota acknowledged that significant changes to the bill are now unavoidable. 'We'll make some modifications to it, strengthen and improve it,' Thune said Tuesday. 'But at the end of the day, the math is simple—51 in the Senate, 218 in the House. That's what we're working toward.' One potential modification Thune has expressed interest in is scaling back the $40,000 state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in the House version of the bill, an increase from the current $10,000 cap that House Republicans from high-tax states secured as a concession. But not all Republicans agree with the additional spending: 'There really isn't a single Republican senator who cares much about the SALT issue,' Thune told reporters as he departed a meeting with Trump and Senate Republicans on Wednesday evening, saying that they discussed ways to dial that money back. It's a move that could alienate House Republicans from New York and New Jersey, who say their support is contingent on the SALT provision. "Let's be clear — no SALT, no deal," New York Republican Mike Lawler said Wednesday in a post on X. Additionally, the bill's sweeping changes to Medicaid, such as imposing new work requirements, are a sticking point. Republican Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Jim Justice of West Virginia have raised red flags over a provision that would eliminate provider taxes—mechanisms that states use to fund Medicaid—which they argue could shutter rural hospitals. Hawley is also opposed to a so-called 'sick tax' in the bill, which would impose new charges on low-income patients for medical visits. Other Republican Senators, including Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, may also put up roadblocks over potential cuts to Medicaid. Trump has personally intervened, holding calls with Sens. Hawley, Paul, and Scott. But there is little evidence he has swayed skeptics. Paul, a libertarian-leaning lawmaker who has vocally pushed back on many Trump Administration policies, told TIME that he plans to vote against the bill over its provision to raise the debt ceiling by trillions of dollars. 'Congress has been acting irresponsibly for decades,' he said. 'We spend $2 trillion more than to come in. They should have a very narrow leash. The only debt ceiling they get should be very, very narrow in time and very, very small in amount. And the more we vote on the debt ceiling, the better. I'd vote on it every three months.' Trump, meanwhile, renewed his calls on Wednesday for scrapping the debt ceiling altogether. The growing litany of disputes has created a daunting legislative gauntlet for Trump's signature bill. Senate committees are now beginning to draft their own version, starting with less controversial sections and leaving the most divisive elements—Medicaid, energy, taxes—for later. Should the Senate approve any amended version, it must still clear the House once again—no small task given the narrow margins and the emboldened dissent among House Republicans. The stakes are high not just for Trump, but for Republicans heading into a contentious midterm season. Failure to extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts would translate into a tax increase for many Americans. Trump's legislation would also boost spending on defense and border security, while reducing spending on Medicaid and food stamps.
