It is a 2024 election battleground where millions of dollars are spent and big names in American politics emerge. But it’s not the Rust Belt. And it’s not Georgia or Nevada.
It’s Long Island, a suburban area east of New York City home to some 3 million people, that could play an outsized role in deciding which party controls Congress. Democrats are just a few seats shy of a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the island, just a train ride from liberal Manhattan, has proven an unlikely stage for some of this year’s most contentious races.
The region is also an unlikely center of Republican power in deep-blue New York.
In a sense, the issues that have pushed Long Island to the right in recent elections could energize every battleground suburb in the state this November, with GOP candidates basing their campaigns on crime, immigration and the economy. The Democrats’ push for president Joe Biden with vice president Kamala Harris topped the list last month, has introduced a new unpredictable variable into the lower-tier elections in the country. Both parties are now scrambling to assess its impact.
But here, Republicans have seized their momentum by exploiting suburban outrage over progressive policies in New York City, casting themselves as a dam that can prevent the left from flooding Long Island with liberal excesses.
The strategy has worked so far. Long Island Republicans dominate local races in Nassau and Suffolk Counties and control all but one of the island’s congressional seats. New York as a whole may vote reliably Democratic, but there are nuances to be found not far from Manhattan.
“The Democratic Party is no longer the Democratic Party as we knew it, or as I knew it growing up. It’s changed. It’s gone much more to the left, progressives are taking over,” said Joe Cairo, chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party and an architect of Republican victories on the island. “People are moving here, they’re tired of the city.”
Republicans scored perhaps their most high-profile victories on Long Island two years ago, as the city reeled from a pandemic-era surge in violent crime. Suburban voters were inundated with a steady stream of apocalyptic headlines and TV commentary suggesting an urban hellhole was just around the corner.
Republicans won all four of the island’s congressional seats, and a Long Island Republican, former U.S. Congressman Lee Zeldin, nearly pulled off a major upset in the race for governor, a position the GOP has not held for years.
However, Democrats now see Long Island as a prime opportunity to regain congressional seats in their bid for a majority in the House of Representatives.
The party starts an encouraging victory in a winter special election for the seat left vacant when George Santos was expelled from Congress. Democrat Tom Suozzi, running as a centrist, defeated a Republican county legislator.
Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, seeking a second term in a district just east of Queens, is expected to face a serious challenge from Democrat Laura Gillen, whom he defeated by less than 4 points in 2022.
Democrats have also issued dire warnings about the implications of a unified federal government under Republicans for abortion access, in line with a formula that has worked elsewhere to boost turnout on their side.
“The legacy of the Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, is starting to play out and really resonate with people who are concerned about access to reproductive health care,” said Gillen, a former city supervisor.
Democrats on Long Island also hope to benefit from Harris as their presidential candidate, as voters are enthusiastic about a female candidate in a year when protecting abortion access is high on the agenda.
“Harris’s ascension to the top of the ticket has done more than just revitalize the presidential race. It has given a lot of hope to Democratic congressional campaigns, where, as Biden was sinking, they were also seeing their prospects plummet,” said Larry Levy, dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University on Long Island.
In New York, Democrats have tried to recalibrate their political strategy after losing on Long Island in 2022, now targeting moderates.
Governor of New York. Kathy Hochul has made crime a major focus, winning concessions from progressives in the state House to overhaul bail laws and toughen criminal penalties for assaulting store clerks. In June, Hochul also made a last-minute decision to suspend a new toll for drivers entering Manhattan after fierce resistance from commuters.
Republicans are downplaying Suozzi’s recent victory, saying the former congressman faced a relative unknown in a low-turnout midterm election on a cold, snowy day. Still, Democrats believe Suozzi’s centrist approach has given their candidates a Long Island road map.
“You can’t ignore the issues that people care about and you have to capture the vital center to win,” said John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Democrat running against Republican Rep. Nick LaLota in a congressional district on eastern Long Island that has been controlled by Republicans for a decade.
But it may be hard for Democrats to shake the perception that they are too progressive for some suburban voters.
Joe Gillespie, a 58-year-old electrician who commutes from Levittown, Long Island, to construction sites in New York City, said Democrats have become too liberal on crime, immigration and social issues to convincingly change course.
“They’ve gone so far to the left,” Gillespie said. “People assume they’re just doing it to win back the vote.”
Candidates will also have to deal with a figure who hangs like a dark cloud over all 2024 elections: former President Donald Trump.
The former Republican president is often greeted as a hero in parts of Long Island by the many working-class New York City police officers and firefighters who live in the suburbs. Trump flags fly in manicured front yards as well as on the backs of pickup trucks.
Trump won Suffolk County on the island’s eastern half in 2016 and 2020, though his margin narrowed last time around. He lost Nassau County in both elections, trailing Biden by 15 points in the district where D’Esposito now faces Gillen. Whether Trump will hurt or help Republicans on the island this year remains to be seen, but both sides are optimistic.
Violent crime in the New York City metropolitan area has dropped significantly since the 2022 elections, but Republicans continue to increase violent crime rates.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, has tried to score points with suburban parents by leading an effort to ban women’s and girls’ sports teams with transgender players from using county-run parks and fields. And while it may not have much practical impact, the push reflects a line of attack that has worked for GOP leaders elsewhere.
The new rules are now the subject of a legal battle. The state’s Democratic Attorney General, Letitia James, claims the ban violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws, but Blakeman said support for the policy locally has been “overwhelming.”
“My phone, my texts, my emails are probably eight to two,” he said. “The Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that independent voters and sensible Democrats can no longer support their positions,” he said.