PENN YAN — In the waning days of the 2020 campaign, Democratic congressional candidate Tracy Mitrano is focusing on the sharp contrast between her and U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, the five-term incumbent.

In her weekly media call Thursday, Mitrano, who lost to Reed in the 2018 election in the 23rd Congressional District, said in areas outside the prospering Ithaca and Corning areas, residents continue to suffer from declines in manufacturing and agriculture.

Reed has had 10 years to help the 11-county congressional district, Mitrano said. Based on human experiences, including farmer suicides and food insecurity among children and adults that is higher than the national average, Reed has failed the district, she said.

Mitrano returned to the issue of Reed’s history of paying property taxes late, asking if he is someone district voters want voting on Social Security and Medicare reforms.

Mitrano also charged that Reed’s campaign forms filed with the Federal Elections Commission show only one paid staff person. “That’s so he can avoid paying taxes,” she explained. “He uses his office to campaign.”

Reed has been chastised for not paying property taxes on several properties on time. The issue has come up in congressional elections. Mitrano produced tax documents that he paid late fees on school, town and county taxes again in 2019.

A member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Reed doesn’t realize “you pay your taxes for the common good,” said Mitrano, who claimed to have paid her property taxes “on time, all my life. Mr. Reed has a long record of not paying taxes on time on property he owns.”

Mitrano again blasted Reed for his television ads that misrepresent her positions. “It’s a smear campaign right out of the national Republican playbook being used all over the country,” she explained.

“I am for affordable healthcare,” Mitrano said. “I have not backed a specific plan, but my goals are to write legislation that will move us to more affordable, more available and more efficient healthcare. People have a choice. Mr. Reed has voted against healthcare every time it has come before him — including preserving protection for preexisting conditions.”

The future of the Affordable Care Act is before the U.S. Supreme Court, Mitrano said. Reed, she said, supported Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who could seal the fate of the ACA, or Obamacare.

“We have a chance for change in this district,” said Mitrano.

Getting out the vote is the immediate concern, Mitrano said. Many across the district have already voted either by absentee ballot or during early voting that continues through Sunday.

The Mitrano campaign is barnstorming the district in a bus, county by county. The campaign has already stopped in Allegany County and plans two events in Cattaraugus County on Sunday:

• 10 a.m. — Outside the Cutco Theater voting site on North Barry Street.

• 12:45 p.m. 107 Park Place, Little Valley.

Mitrano said over the past three years she has tried to draw a sharp contrast with her vision for the future and Reed’s.

The biggest difference between the candidates, Mitrano said, is healthcare. The core issues she has been campaigning on include:

• Education. Mitrano would guarantee every child 3 and older a quality education with sufficient federal funding. She also supports additional vocational training and certification.

She says Reed has not embraced student loan forgiveness while voting for the 2017 GOP tax cut, a debt she said hangs over children’s heads.

• Infrastructure. President Trump never produced an infrastructure bill as promised, Mitrano said. “We need help in this district,” she said, citing roads, bridges and the internet. She proposed a federal program similar to those that led to expansion of electric service and the telephone for internet service to unserved areas.

• Ecological. Mitrano said Reed has voted against ecological and environmental initiatives, while he favored expanding hydraulic fracturing for natural gas into New York state.

• The Economy. Mitrano said her vision for the future includes training in 20th century manufacturing and other jobs. Training for some jobs can be quite straightforward and done in less time than an associate’s degree, she said.

REED, MEANWHILE, hosted an event in downtown Ithaca Thursday in which he decried extremism, including political violence, intimidation, racism and anti-Semitism.

The event was organized in response to actions across his district, including an incident in which a brick was thrown through his campaign office in Corning in September and a dead rat and a brick with a family member’s name on it were left at his home last week.

Counter-protesters also allegedly assaulted supporters of President Trump in Ithaca earlier this month.