New York Is Critical for Republicans to Keep US House Control

Billy House
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(Bloomberg) -- The path to control of the US House flows from the New York suburbs to the Hudson River Valley and west to the Catskill Mountains and Syracuse, where Republicans are trying to hang on to six seats in places President Joe Biden won in 2020.

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Democrats, who need to pick up five seats to retake the House majority, are betting New Yorkers’ unease with the GOP’s focus on social issues like abortion, transgender rights and book bans give them an edge.

The Republicans in these districts — once the territory of moderate-to-liberal “Rockefeller Republicans”— in turn are de-emphasizing culture-war fights to lean into pocketbook issues and concrete local concerns. Their priorities run the gamut from farm subsidies to electrical vehicle requirements for school buses to the cap on the state and local tax deduction, which hits downstate voters particularly hard.

Republican Representative Brandon Williams tried to demonstrate his dedication to local causes when he donned black waterproof muckboots to visit the Blood family’s Central New York dairy farm. They bonded over shared military experience and he listened to their dismay over an agriculture subsidy system they consider too generous to corn and soybean growers while small dairy farms struggle.

“For me, it’s those types of issues that matter, not the political party of the congressman,” Autum Blood, 42, said after they gave the Republican and part-time truffle farmer a tour of her organic farm nestled in the rolling hills 230 miles north of Manhattan.

The region’s economy and cultural outlook varies widely, running from IBM’s corporate home in Armonk to the muddy alfalfa field that hosted the original Woodstock Music Festival. It encompasses decaying industrial cities and the former country home of the original Rockefeller Republican, Nelson Rockefeller, a New York governor.

Republicans in November took four New York districts — and kept seats in two other moderate-to-liberal areas — by hammering Democrats on skyrocketing inflation and the broader US economy. The party went on to win a narrow House majority.

On a recent swing through the Hudson Valley, issues like abortion didn’t come up.

At a lakeside event with veterans just north of New York City, Republican Mike Lawler spoke over the noise of passing jet skis as he answered questions on military medical insurance.

Jack Duncan, a 66-year-old who served in the Marines and Army before retiring, later confided he and his son are Republicans, his wife a Democrat, and his daughter an independent voter.

“That’s pretty reflective of things around here. If Lawler wants to stick around, he needs to find middle ground,” Duncan said. “You’ll find being in lockstep with an extreme position — either the extreme left or the extreme right — won’t work.”

But New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, argued recently that Lawler and the other Republican freshmen in his state merely “project moderation.”

“They have failed to distance themselves from the most extreme elements of their party,” Jeffries said. “They fail to pass the test.”

Lawler narrowly beat Sean Patrick Maloney, who headed the Democrats’ national campaign committee, in one of November’s biggest congressional upsets.

These Republicans supported the House GOP’s initial offering in the fight to suspend the nation’s debt ceiling, a package that would have rolled back veterans’ health benefits and threatened food assistance programs. Democrats also point to the votes most cast in favor of measures restricting military access to abortion services as contradictory to their statements the federal government needed to stay out of the issue.

Yet, non-partisan analyses suggest they are among the least conservative of House Republicans. Lawler’s voting record is more liberal than 98% of fellow House Republicans, putting him at the current Congress’s ideological center, according to Voteview.com.

“This is a district Joe Biden won by 10 points. There’s 70,000 more Democrats than Republicans,” Lawler said. “People expect that you’re going to be reasonable, rational, and that you are working to address the challenges we are facing as a community and as a country.”

Three of the other first-term New York Republicans — Williams, Marc Molinaro and Anthony D’Esposito — are also considered by the non-partisan Cook Political Report to be in very close races.

A fifth seat belongs to scandal-plagued George Santos, whose legal and ethical problems doom his reelection in his Long Island and Queens district, where other Republicans are challenging him. Freshman GOP Representative Nick LaLota’s district isn’t considered as competitive as the others.

For the freshman New York Republicans, gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin’s strong showing last year against Governor Kathy Hochul provided helpful non-presidential-year coattails.

But Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, New York, said having Biden back at the top of the ballot — combined with increasingly conservative GOP priorities — helps Democrats.

“It’s going to be difficult for these Republicans to hold on,” Miringoff said.

Veteran New York political consultant Tom Doherty, a top aide to former three-term GOP Governor George Pataki, said getting mired in far-right policy controversies “never helps anyone in New York.”

Local Matters

These Republicans do align — at least in part — with the majority of their party on immigration. They’ve spoken out against New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ handling of the migrant surge in his city, and its impacts in the surrounding counties.

But they’re also willing to break with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, if need be, to get what they want on other matters.

That threatens a year-end extension of business tax breaks as the New York lawmakers insist the measure raise the cap on the state and local tax deduction, or SALT, which hits residents in these areas. It also complicates maintaining unity among House Republicans in a looming government shutdown fight.

In interviews in their respective districts, Lawler, Williams and Molinaro each described themselves as pragmatic conservatives focused on what they can accomplish for their constituents rather than toeing any party line.

Molinaro represents a district that extends to rural areas and the college towns of Ithaca, Binghamton and Oneonta. He narrowly beat Democrat Josh Riley, who is running again.

“I know why I am in Washington. And that is to help fix railroad bridges. It’s to help get jobs in upstate New York. It’s to fix agriculture policy. To expand farming and agriculture in upstate New York,” Molinaro said at a Binghamton stop.

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