The increasingly tight race between Gov. Kathy Hochul and challenger Lee Zeldin has most New York voters focused on the top of the ticket — but they could also play a key role in deciding the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
With early voting for the Nov. 8 midterm elections starting Saturday, the Democratic governor and her Republican rival are locked in a bitter battle that the RealClearPolitics website recently ranked a toss-up as polls showed Zeldin rapidly gaining ground on Hochul.
At the same time, voters in traditionally deep-blue New York are poised to help Republicans regain control of the House, where the GOP needs to flip a net of just five seats.
Nine of the races in New York’s 26 congressional districts are described as competitive by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, with three ranked as toss-ups.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Glens Falls), the third-ranking House Republican, has vowed that a “red wave is going to sweep across New York.”
“We could have 15 Republicans in Congress from New York,” she said.
State Democratic Committee Chairman Jay Jacobs, meanwhile, conceded that all the House races on Long Island and several seats upstate were “up for grabs, with his party playing defense on the subjects that poll show matter most to voters: inflation and crime.
“Those are issues that are not working in our favor right now,” Jacobs said.
Here are the state’s closest House contests and other important information for voters:
17th Congressional District
The race between Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-Newburgh), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Assemblyman Mike Lawler (R-Pearl River) was revised from “lean Democrat” to a toss-up this week by the Cook Report.
It cited $3.5 million in spending by GOP super PACs compared to just $384,000 by Democratic groups, as well as Zeldin’s surge in the governor’s race and Maloney’s controversial use of taxpayer funds to hire his husband’s personal trainer as a fill-in driver.
A loss by Maloney would reportedly mark the first ouster of a sitting DCCC chair since 1980.
19th Congressional District
Another toss-up race pits Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the GOP’s 2018 gubernatorial candidate, against Democrat Josh Riley, a former staffer to “Saturday Night Live” writer-turned-former-Senator Al Franken.
They’re competing for a seat left vacant when former Rep. Antonio Delgado resigned to become lieutenant governor following the indictment of Hochul’s first No. 2, former state Sen. Brian Benjamin, in a campaign-finance bribery scheme.
22nd Congressional District
In the third toss-up race, two Navy veterans are doing battle to succeed Rep. John Katko (R-Auburn), a moderate who announced his retirement in January after becoming one of only 10 GOP House members who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Republican Brandon Williams is a Dallas native who owns a software company while Democrat Francis Conole, who grew up in central New York, is an Iraq War veteran and commander in the Navy Reserve who served as a policy adviser to former defense secretaries Ash Carter and James Mattis.
1st Congressional District
On Long Island, Democratic Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming faces Republican Nick LaLota, a Navy veteran and chief of staff to the county legislature’s GOP majority, to succeed Zeldin in a race rated “lean Republican” by Cook.
Zeldin, who previously served in the state Senate, is expected to do well in Suffolk County as a gubernatorial candidate and could boost LaLota’s chances, but Democratic voter registration increased in the district as city dwellers relocated to the East End during the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially helping Fleming.
2nd Congressional District
Long Island also is the site of a rematch between Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-Massapequa) and Democrat Jackie Gordon, a former Babylon town councilmember and retired Army lieutenant colonel who lost to Garbarino two years ago in the race to succeed longtime GOP Rep. Peter King.
Garbarino voted to certify President Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump, but opposed impeaching the 45th president over the Capitol riot.
3rd Congressional District
Public relations guru Robert Zimmerman, a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee, is squaring off against Republican financier George Santos to replace Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Huntington), who opted against seeking re-election in order to unsuccessfully challenge Hochul in the Democratic primary.
Their race to represent parts of Nassau County and Queens is believed to be the first involving two openly gay House candidates and is rated “Leans Democrat” after Santos lost to Suozzi two years ago.
4th Congressional District
Still another Long Island election pits former Democratic Hempstead supervisor Laura Gillen against Republican Hempstead Councilman Anthony D’Esposito, a retired NYPD detective.
They’re vying for the seat left open by retiring Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-Garden City), a former Nassau County district attorney, in a race that the Cook Political Report rates “Lean Democrat.”
11th Congressional District
In the Big Apple, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island, Brooklyn) faces a rematch with former Democratic Rep. Max Rose, who served a single term before Malliotakis ousted him in 2020.
Rose, a decorated former Army officer who saw combat in Afghanistan, has bucked his party’s orthodoxy to appeal to conservative voters on Staten Island, including by using his campaign website to highlight a Post article about his support for rolling back the state’s controversial 2019 bail reform law.
18th Congressional District
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-Kingston) narrowly defeated Molinaro to win a special election in August to fill the remainder of Delgado’s term, while also winning a Democratic primary to run for a full term in this newly drawn district against Assemblyman Colin Schmitt (R-Washingtonville).
At the time, Democrats touted Ryan’s election to the House as a “bellwether” for the midterms but the party now appears to be playing defense, with Ryan one of three New York and New Jersey candidates being boosted by at least $6.3 million in recent spending the Democratic House Majority PAC.
Meanwhile, a former flame from Schmitt’s college days — Philadelphia-based Democratic consultant Victoria Perrone — hosted a fundraiser for Ryan earlier this month, calling Schmitt an “extremist” who’s “been trying to run for office since we were in college.”
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Midterm election polls
Recent polling shows Republicans leading Democrats as the midterm elections approach, with eight of 10 surveys released this week giving the GOP an edge in a generic congressional contest.
A Rassmussen Reports poll released Friday said 49% of likely voters would vote for a Republican compared to 42% for a Democrat, with 5% favoring someone else and 4% undecided.
Two other polls released Thursday by USA Today/Suffolk University and Insider Advantage each gave the GOP a narrower, four-point lead: 49%-45% and 48%-44%, respectively.
Meanwhile, two other key indicators of the likely election results also showed Democrats in trouble.
President Biden’s job approval rating was just 43.1%, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, while four polls this week showed that between 66% and 71% of respondents said the country was on the wrong track.
New York state Senate
Republican efforts to end the Democratic supermajority in Albany are focused squarely on Long Island, where state Sens. John Brooks (D-Farmingdale) and Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck) face tough challenges from former Nassau County Legislator Steven Rhoads and former state Sen. Jack Martins, respectively.
Flipping both seats would deprive Democrats of their veto-proof advantage in the upper chamber, and Larry Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said the incumbents faced an “existential” threat.
“It’s clear that after a favorable redistricting and the wind beginning to pick up against the faces of most Democratic candidates, Long Island senators are very worried about their races and picking up the pace of their fundraising and campaigning,” he said.
Open races in Nassau and Suffolk counties, along with other contests in the Hudson Valley and upstate, also present pick-up opportunities for the GOP.
State GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy — who’s running for Congress against Democrat Max Della Pia in the 23rd district — predicted “a red wave the likes of which we have not experienced since our historic victories in 1994.”
“Thanks to our efforts to stop the Hochulmander, we are competitive in more than a dozen congressional districts and we are going to have huge gains in the senate and assembly, he said.
Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the state Senate’s Democrats, likened those remarks to “fan fiction,” adding that “when the dust settles, our Democratic majority will still be there to steer our state in the right direction.”
“We have built the largest Senate majority in state history by competing aggressively and intelligently in all corners of the state and this year is no exception,” he said.
What else is on the ballot
New Yorkers will also decide the fate of four ballot initiatives, including three that would amend the New York City charter.
One charter amendment would add a preamble committing City Hall to work toward a “just and equitable city for all” and to correct “past and continuing harms and to reconstruct, revise, and reimagine our foundations, structures, institutions, and laws to promote justice and equity for all New Yorkers.”
The second would require officials to produce and revise “racial equity” plans for the city government and its various agencies every two years, as well as create a commission to oversee a new Office of Racial Equity to “advance racial equity and coordinate the City’s racial equity planning process.”
The third would require City Hall to create a “true” measure for the cost of living in New York City, exclusive of any assistance provided to the poor by the government or private charities.
Additionally, voters will be asked to approve issuing $4.2 billion worth of bonds to finance projects statewide to increase flood resiliency, improve water quality and mitigate the impact of climate change.
Early voting dates, times and locations
Early voting in New York begins Saturday and will run through Nov. 6 but early voting hours vary by day and by county.
In addition, early voting locations may be different from where New Yorkers regularly cast their ballots.
New York City voters can find out where and when to go from the city Board of Elections website at https://vote.nyc/page/find-your-poll-site
The site also lets voters view a sample ballot with their choices on Election Day.
Outside the Big Apple, voters can check with their local boards or use the state Board of Elections website at https://voterlookup.elections.ny.gov/
Absentee ballots
New Yorkers are eligible to vote by absentee ballots if they will be out of state on Nov. 8 or can’t vote in person because of disability or illness, including the risk of contracting COVID-19 and other communicable diseases.
Other grounds include being the primary caregiver for one or more sick or disabled people or being behind bars for any reason other than a felony conviction.
The deadline to apply online or by mail was Oct. 24 but voters can still request absentee ballots in person at their board of elections headquarters until Nov. 7. However, ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 8.
Also, those who request absentee ballots will no longer be able to vote with a regular ballot on Election Day. Instead, they will be given a provisional, or “affidavit” ballot and the affidavit ballot is counted instead — provided it is received after the absentee ballot.
When to expect results
Polling places will close in New York at 9 p.m. on Election Day, but Empire State residents should prepare to wait a while for the final results.
The tally of in-person votes, including those cast early, should be available as the night goes on — but absentee ballots won’t be tabulated until after the polls close, and each one has to be double-checked to make sure the voter didn’t also cast a ballot in person.
Initial results are expected to skew in Republicans’ favor, with Democrats likely to gain ground as the absentee votes are counted, a similar dynamic to what happened in the 2020 presidential election.
