3 Incoming Democrats Flipped New York House Seats

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Sept. 9, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

NEW YORK—New York’s highly competitive U.S. House races, upstate and on Long Island, resulted in the election of politicians who will bring to the 119th Congress a somewhat different political agenda.

Despite a strong showing nationally for the Republican Party and President-elect Donald Trump, Democrat challengers managed to flip several districts, unseating Republican incumbents, including those they had unsuccessfully challenged two years prior.

At the same time, there were significant victories for Republicans. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) successfully defended his District 17 seat against Democrat Mondaire Jones, who previously held the same House seat and is identified with his party’s left wing. And, in District 1 on eastern Long Island, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) beat back a challenge from the progressive John Avlon.

With ballots still being counted in some races, the overall political balance in the House of Representatives in 2025 and beyond remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, when the next Congress is seated in January, New York’s incoming class of representatives will bring a mix of legislative agendas with them, some more amenable to bipartisanship than others.

NY-4

In New York’s District 4, which includes parts of Queens as well as Nassau County at the western edge of Long Island, Democrat Laura Gillen defeated incumbent Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.). As in the upstate 17th District race, the same candidates had competed in 2022, and the Democrat who narrowly lost in 2022 this time emerged victorious.

At the end of the night, Gillen had taken 51 percent of all votes cast in the district, compared to D’Esposito’s 49 percent.

Gillen’s political agenda has evolved over time. She started out in local politics on Long Island, winning an election as Hempstead town supervisor in 2017. In an interview in July, Gillen described her political career as originating largely from frustration she felt over what she called corruption in the Republican political networks of District 4 and her desire to strike a blow for transparency.

Setting her sights on national politics, Gillen has taken a less aggressive stance on immigration reform and border security than some candidates. While acknowledging the need for stepped-up funding and better technology for the U.S. Border Patrol, Gillen has also spoken out against what she views as racially driven demonization of immigrants.

In a section of her campaign website outlining her general stances on issues, Gillen went so far as to include a separate plank for “Haitian Americans” among such broad issues as “Gun Safety,” “Labor,” “Public Safety,” and “Protecting Our Environment.”

“I will defend the Haitian community in the face of racist, conspiratorial attacks from extremists,” Gillen stated.

With regard to gun safety, Gillen has taken a firm stance, vowing to expand background checks and the role of mental health professionals in averting mass shootings and other tragedies.

People cross a street near the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 16, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

NY-19

In New York’s upstate 19th District, the outcome of the race provides an entry to Congress for Democrat Josh Riley, who ran unsuccessfully against Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) for the same seat in 2022.

The outcome of the race was close, with Riley securing 50.7 percent of all votes cast, compared with Molinaro’s 49.3 percent.

Riley ran on a platform that included a pledge to expand background checks for guns, and keep “weapons of war” off the streets. Riley also took a firm stand in favor of marriage equality and against what he labeled “dangerous conversion therapies.” He advanced a broad eco-agenda.

In an interview shortly after the election, Riley described himself as a Democrat from a family of Republicans, and suggested that, given the near-even party split among voters in the 19th District, anyone representing the district in Congress must act in a bipartisan spirit rather than treating one side as the enemy.

He expressed his openness to partial accommodation of Republican initiatives on some issues, while vowing to fight to block enactment of other parts of Trump’s agenda.

Riley said he agrees with the president-elect’s opposition to taxes on tips and plan to end taxes on Social Security benefits, but said that he will work hard to counter any effort to slash taxes for billionaires and oil companies.

He also said he would fight to restore the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, describing the cause as bipartisan even though others in Riley’s party, such as Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), have explicitly blamed Trump for ending the deduction.

In an often heated and personal debate shortly before the election, Riley did not go into specifics as to why he disagreed with his opponent Molinaro’s stance on border security, saying simply that more bipartisanship was in order.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) walks up the stairs of the small house rotunda to his office at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 9, 2024, in Washington as Senate and U.S. House of Representatives members return to the Nation's capital after August recess. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

NY-22

In New York’s upstate District 22, which includes the university town of Syracuse, the Democrat challenger, state Senator John Mannion, defeated incumbent Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.) by a margin far exceeding those of other races.

Despite a controversy that flared over the summer, when former members of the state senator’s staff accused Mannion of abusive and inappropriate conduct, he handily won the District 22 race, netting 184,016 votes, or 54.1 percent of the total, compared to 155,842, or 45.9 percent, for Williams.

In an election night interview, as results were still coming in across the nation, Mannion said he held out hope that Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris might yet defeat Trump even though outcomes in several states were not what he and his colleagues had hoped for. He said the results reported for Districts 19 and 4 were exciting and that he looked forward to serving alongside Riley and Gillen.

On the question of bipartisanship, Mannion gave a somewhat ambiguous answer, saying he favored working across the aisle to get things done while repeatedly alluding to threats to the stability of American democracy.

Citing “workers’ rights” and “women’s reproductive rights” as legislative priorities in the upcoming Congress, Mannion said he found the prospect of a Trump White House, without a Democrat Senate or House, “very concerning.”