Road to new House majority for Democrats goes through New York

New York is emerging as a critical battleground state for Democrats as they look to recapture the House majority heading into 2024.

A slew of Democratic candidates are rolling out bids to take back Republican-held House seats, while members of the party are allocating tens of millions of dollars in the Empire State. The moves come just months after Republicans flipped several New York House districts, leading to a narrow majority.

Democrats are also betting the backlash against former President Trump, should he be the 2024 GOP nominee, will help them flip red-leaning districts in the reliably liberal state to win back the lower chamber.

“Obviously Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, which is looking increasingly likely, is terrible for New York Republicans,” said Jon Reinish, who served as a former aide to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

New York became one of the biggest upsets for Democrats last November. A handful of Republicans flipped Democratic-held seats, even ousting former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (N.Y.), who served as the chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm that cycle.

Republicans leaned heavily into the salient issues of crime and the economy as they made their case to voters, but they also benefited from having GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin (N.Y.) at the top of the ticket to encourage Republican turnout. Zeldin, seen as a strong GOP contender, lost to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) by roughly 6 points. 

Now, Democrats are looking to take back those seats to regain their majority in 2024. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is targeting New York districts represented by GOP Reps. George Santos, Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro. 

New York GOP Reps. Nick LaLota and Brandon Williams, also included on that list, won in House districts that were previously represented by Republicans, but their wins solidified GOP control there for another two years. Williams’s race was especially close, given he won by roughly 1 percentage point.

Just last week, the House Democrats’ campaign arm launched an ad campaign in New York targeting LaLota, D’Esposito, Lawler and Molinaro — all of whom have called on Santos to resign.

McCarthy opted to hold a vote on referring the expulsion resolution to the House Ethics Committee — rather than on expulsion itself — after the measure’s Democratic sponsor used a procedural maneuver to force McCarthy to act. The move allowed Republicans to avoid weighing in directly on whether Santos should remain in the House, and the New York Republicans voted with the rest of their party in favor of the referral.

Several Democratic candidates have waded into the race: Small business owner Liz Gereghty — the sister of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) — is running to unseat Lawler; a crowded field of Democrats looks to take on Santos; and Democrat Josh Riley is vying to run again against Molinaro, among others.

Meanwhile, the House Majority PAC announced it would dedicate $45 million to a fund to win back those House seats. Money from the fund will be directed toward things such as TV advertising and billboard campaigns. 

Even though New York Republicans like D’Esposito have strategically distanced themselves from Santos, Reinish said it’ll be a tougher balancing act when it comes to the eventual GOP presidential nominee.

“They have to try to motivate and mobilize Republican voters in their district, every last one that they can as well as persuade fence sitters and swing voters. So that’s going to be a very hard needle to thread, again, especially with someone as polarizing as Donald Trump at the top of the ticket, who loses the middle,” Reinish explained. 

Democrats believe Trump’s reputation among voters is toxic, and he’ll be a helpful voter turnout mechanism to encourage Democrats to vote in 2024 if he’s on the ballot.

However, some Republicans are seeing 2024 as a 2016 redux with a lot of negative campaigning in tow.

“This is probably going to be a reboot of 2016 of Trump vs. Hillary [Clinton] in the sense of neither candidate are particularly likable and neither candidate can run on a positive agenda,” Republican strategist John Thomas explained. “So it’ll be a slash-and-burn negative campaign on both sides of the aisle, which actually serves to suppress turnout on both sides.”

And while some Democrats are already projecting confidence about their prospects in New York next cycle, Republicans and other Democrats believe it’s too early to boast their chances. Much will rely on the economy — largely unpredictable more than a year out from the 2024 election — and other salient issues, they say. 

“I would argue no one should be overconfident,” said one New York Democratic strategist.

“If we have a smooth landing and we’re not in a recession and inflation is down and the perception of crime is down and abortion has high salience … that’ll be a positive for the Democrats upstate,” the strategist explained. 

Zeldin, too, signaled it’s a mistake for Democrats to be too confident about their odds in the state next cycle while nodding to the fact that as voters get acquainted with their new GOP freshmen members, it’ll be harder to fend off those incumbents.

“With each passing day, these Republican Congressmen get better known in their district, make further progress with constituent services, and become better prepared for their re-election campaign,” Zeldin explained in a statement to The Hill.

“The Democratic Party has only further gone to the left in the meantime, and the issues of last year’s campaign remain top of mind for voters today. There will be a battleground in New York next year for control of Congress, but the Democratic Party’s over-confidence is a liability for them,” he added. 

The former congressman also suggested crime and the economy are still strong issues for voters and advised New York GOP members to focus on what’s on voters’ minds.

“There is also significant concern over the border crisis that is spilling across New York, as well as a number of other issues that may become more important as next year’s election gets closer,” Zeldin said.