Key races to watch in New York 2024 elections for Congress

The year 2024 has been an active one for New York’s delegation in the House of Representatives. A new set of congressional maps was submitted and approved, ending a years-long legal battle. Then there were two special elections — one of which to replace former Rep. George Santos after his historic expulsion — followed by a few bruising primary elections this spring.

It all comes after the 2022 elections in which Democratic House candidates across the country largely held their own and prevented an overwhelming “red wave.” But New York stood out in stark contrast. Republicans flipped four Democratic seats in the Empire State, the number that ultimately helped the GOP win their thin majority in the chamber.

With a presidential election at the top of the ticket and House control up for grabs again this fall, New York’s congressional races are back in the spotlight.

Here are the races in New York state that you’ll want to keep an eye on.

NY-22

The Central New York district’s redrawn boundaries in 2024 are perhaps the most different in the state from two years ago. Now consisting of Onondaga, Madison and parts of Oneida, Cortland and Cayuga counties, it is slightly more Democratic and Cook Political Report earlier this year labeled the seat one of the most vulnerable in the country for Republicans. It is currently held by GOP Rep. Brandon Williams, who was first elected in 2022.

Despite what seems like should be an advantage, Democrats here have been burned over the last few cycles. A white whale of sorts for the party, the district that includes the city of Syracuse has had a Democratic representative only four years out of the last 44, despite a slight Democratic voter advantage and despite voting for Democratic presidential candidates for more than three decades. The district voted for Joe Biden in 2020 by 7 points.

Indeed, the final poll before the election in 2022 had Williams’ Democratic opponent up by 4 points. Williams would win by two.

Looking to be the Democrat to end the party’s shortcomings for the seat is state Sen. John Mannion, who has served in the state’s upper chamber in Albany for four years, and is used to running in extremely close races the region can produce. He won his 2022 race by just 10 votes.

Cook Political Report, the independent nonpartisan index and analysis group, ranks the race as “lean Democrat.”

Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro, left, and Democrat Josh Riley are the candidates for New York’s 19th Congressional District. (Spectrum News 1 graphic)

NY-19

The most high-profile rematch from 2022 is taking place in the 19th Congressional District, which stretches from Rensselaer and Columbia counties in the east to Tompkins County, and includes the cities of Binghamton and Ithaca.

Republican Marc Molinaro won the seat by 2 points in 2022 against Democrat Josh Riley, who is again running the challenge. Molinaro touts his decades living in upstate New York and endorsements from various trade unions, while casting Riley as an out-of-touch Washington insider. Riley, in response, says he is a fifth generation native of Broome County and labels his opponent a career politician, noting the decades that Molinaro has spent in public office.

This cycle, the two have sparred over the issue of immigration, in particular.

The district, had it existed in current form in 2020, voted for Biden for president by 5 points. Cook Political Report ranks the race as a “tossup.”

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, left, and Democrat Mondaire Jones are the candidates iin New York’s 17th Congressional District. (Spectrum News 1 graphic)

NY-17

Further south is a race that’s not a rematch, but rather a battle between an incumbent and the former officeholder.

In one of the more surprising GOP pickups in 2022, Republican Mike Lawler defeated Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney, at the time the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, by a narrow 0.9 points in a district Biden carried by 10 points two years earlier.

In 2024, Lawler faces Democrat Mondaire Jones, who represented the 17^th District for a single term before redistricting prompted Maloney to seek reelection in the new 17th District rather than his home 18th. Rather than challenge Maloney, Jones decided to run in another district, and was unsuccessful. Since leaving Congress, Jones was appointed to a six-year term on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Earlier this month, Lawler apologized after The New York Times obtained photos of him wearing blackface about two decades ago at a college Halloween costume party where he dressed as Michael Jackson.

Another wrinkle in this race is the presence of Anthony Frascone on the Working Families Party line, who unexpectedly won the party’s nomination for the seat in the June primaries. Jasmine Gripper, co-state director of the state Working Families Party, told Spectrum News over the summer that Frascone has no connection to the Working Families Party, never went through the party’s endorsement process and is likely a Republican plant to take away votes from Jones.

The 17th District is made up of Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and southern Dutchess counties. Cook Political Report ranks the race as a “lean Republican.”

Republican Alison Esposito and Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan are the candidates for New York’s 18th Congressional District. (Spectrum News 1 graphic)

 NY-18

The 18th Congressional District was the Democrats’ lone bit of good news in the Hudson Valley in 2022. Rep. Pat Ryan, fresh off a special election win in another district months earlier, was able to hang on in this new district by 1.3 points.

Like Lawler to the south, Ryan faces an opponent with some name recognition from recent political campaigns in Republican Alison Esposito. A former NYPD detective for 20 years, Esposito ran alongside Lee Zeldin as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2022. Two years ago when Ryan came out victorious, Zeldin and Esposito carried the district in the governor’s race by 3 points on the same ballot.

Although Ryan was the first New York Democratic member of Congress to call on President Joe Biden to step aside after the June debate against former President Donald Trump, both Ryan and Esposito have accused the other of being rubber stamps for their respective party nominees for the White House.

The 18th District is made up of parts of Orange, Dutchess, and Ulster counties, and includes the cities of Poughkeepsie and Kingston. It voted for Biden for president by 8 points in 2020 and Cook Political Report ranks the race as “lean Democrat.”

Laura Gillen, left, and Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito are the candidates in New York’s 4th Congressional District. (Spectrum News 1 graphic)

NY-04

From the multiple battlegrounds upstate now to the political arena that is Long Island. No other region in the state has seen such a dramatic shift in such a short period of time. The district, made up of central and southern Nassau County, voted for Joe Biden for president by 15 points in 2020 and then for Lee Zeldin for governor by 6 points in 2022. That election also swept in Republican Anthony D’Esposito, winning a retiring Democrat’s seat by 4 points.

Like his fellow GOP freshman Molinaro, D’Esposito faces a rematch with his 2022 opponent, Democrat Laura Gillen, a former Hempstead town supervisor.

The race is the only competitive one that has garnered visits from political heavyweights in the campaign’s closing weeks. Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Uniondale in September where he praised D’Esposito as doing a “great job.”

New York’s own House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is poised to become the next House speaker if Democrats win the chamber, rallied with Gillen last week.

D’Esposito has denied allegations first reported by The New York Times in September that he gave both his lover and his fiancée’s child jobs in his congressional office — a possible breach of House ethics rules.

An Oct. 22 Siena College and Newsday poll found that Gillen led D’Esposito by 8 points. Cook Political Report ranks the race as a “tossup.”

Democrat John Avlon and Republican Rep. Nick LaLota are the candidates in New York’s 1st Congressional District. (Spectrum News 1 graphic)

NY-01

Staying on Long Island is the race between Republican Rep. Nick LaLota and Democrat John Avlon. Like its neighbor, this Suffolk County district saw drastic shifts between the 2020 race for president and 2022 race for governor. Biden and Trump tied 50-50% while Republican Lee Zeldin, his home county and House district, carried the district by 14 points. In addition, Republicans have wiped out Democrats in local offices in Suffolk County since 2020.

Running to succeed Zeldin in Congress, LaLota won the 1st District by 10 points two years ago and Republicans have held onto the seat for a decade.

Avlon is a former CNN commentator.

The October Siena College and Newsday poll found LaLota leading Avlon by 3 points. Cook Political Report ranks the race as “likely Republican.”

The Capitol is seen late Tuesday night, Sept. 26, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

NY-03

Lastly, there’s the seat that produced George Santos and the months of headlines that followed, a saga bookended by Democrat Tom Suozzi.

First elected in 2016, Suozzi didn’t seek reelection in 2022 to instead run unsuccessfully for governor. His absence helped Santos win the 3rd District seat that year after he first sought it in 2020.

After Santos was expelled from the House in December 2023, Suozzi jumped in the ring for a special election for his old seat back, defeating Republican Mazi Pilip in February by 8 points. He is now in the running for a full two-year term in the lower chamber and faces Republican Michael LiPetri, who served a single term in the state Assembly.

The district runs from northern Nassau County into northeastern Queens. Cook Political Report ranks it as “likely Democrat.”

Early voting in New York begins Saturday, Oct. 26 and runs through Sunday, Nov. 3. Election Day is Nov. 5.