Control of Congress may come down to a handful of House races in New York
ALBANY, N.Y. — New Yorkers could play a big role in determining Tuesday control of the US House While Republicans cling to the suburban seats they won by seizing two years ago fear of crimeand Democrats are trying to get back at them by warning that a right-wing Congress could ban abortion.
If all goes well, Democrats hope to pick out a handful of Republican incumbents congressional races on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley, as well a central district in New York those state leaders recently reconfigured to make more favorable for the Democrats.
But the Republican Party could ultimately hold all that ground and has a chance to dethrone one or two incumbent Democrats.
Most of the toughest competitions are taking place in places where voters favored President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in 2020 but sent a slew of Republicans to Congress two years later.
The many competitive races underscore New York’s hidden political complexities associated with Democrats as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and US representative. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but has also given rise to Republican stars like US Rep. Elise Stefanikthe chairman of the Republican Conference of the House of Representatives. All three were heavy favorites to win re-election on Tuesday.
On Long Island, Republican U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito is in a tough rematch with Democrat Laura Gillen, a former city supervisor he defeated in 2022 but who might fare better with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top.
In central New York, Republican Rep. Brandon Williams is trying to hold off a challenge from Democratic Sen. John Mannion. Williams won his seat two years ago by a margin of only about 2,600 votes and this year his district was redrawn to exclude some rural areas where he had won support.
In a trio of districts covering parts of the Hudson Valley, three incumbents — two freshman Republicans and a Democrat — are trying to hold on to seats they won by narrow margins in the last election.
The strategy on both sides has been to moderate suburban voters while labeling opponents as extremists.
In 2022, Republicans in the New York City suburbs thrived with campaigns portraying the nearby city as having become lawless during the pandemic.
Crime rates have dropped significantly since then, but Republicans have continued to emphasize crime as a problem while also trying to capitalize on suburban unease about immigration policy and an influx of international migrants.
Democrats have moved to more strongly defend voters’ concerns about crime and immigration. They have also put pressure on Republicans abortion — a tactic that failed to produce expected victories for the party two years ago in a state where abortion rights are generally not considered threatened.
Republican gains on Long Island were eroded last year when former U.S. Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress after it emerged that he had done so invented his life story and defrauded campaign donors.
Santos was replaced by Democratic U.S. Rep. in a special election. Tom Suozziwho is now running for re-election against Republican Mike LiPetri, a former state lawmaker.
Further down Long Island, Democrats have turned to former CNN anchor and author John Avlon in an effort to deny Republican U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota a second term.
There are three exciting contests in districts covering parts of the Hudson Valley.
In the suburbs north of New York City, Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler faces former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones, a Democrat who previously represented part of the district before its boundaries were redrawn for the 2022 elections.
Jones, one of the first two openly gay black men to serve in the House of Representatives, portrayed Lawler as someone who “pretends to be a moderate on television but votes like an extreme MAGA Republican.”
Lawler says Jones is the one pretending to be a centrist, when in reality he is a liberal.
“People want reasonableness,” Lawler said in an interview before the election. “They want people who are willing to work across the aisle to get things done.”
The race received extra attention in early October when The New York Times showed a photo Lawler in blackface in 2006 at a college Halloween party, where he dressed as Michael Jackson. Lawler said the outfit was intended as a tribute to a childhood idol.
Elsewhere in the Hudson Valley, Democratic U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan is locked in a close race with Republican Alison Esposito, who has served in the New York Police Department and is running on a law-and-order platform. Esposito, if she prevails, would be the first openly gay Republican woman to serve in Congress.
Farther north, Republican U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro is trying to stop Democrat Josh Riley in a district that stretches from the New York-Massachusetts border across the Catskill Mountains to the Finger Lakes.
The election is a rematch of 2022, when Molinaro narrowly defeated Riley. Molinaro may have moved harder to the right than his Republican colleagues in the state, especially when he recently shared a social media post falsely claiming that Haitian immigrants in Ohio pets eat.
In New York’s only congressional race not involving a sitting president, Democrat George Latimer is heavily favored in a race against Republican Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser. Latimer defeated U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a Democratic primary in June, the first member of the progressive group of liberals known as the ‘Squad’ to lose a re-election bid.