Control of Congress may come down to a handful of House races in New York

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New Yorkers could play an outsized role Tuesday in determining control of the U.S. House as Republicans cling to suburban seats they won two years ago by seizing on fears of crime, and Democrats try to claw them back by warning that a right-wing Congress might ban abortion.

If everything goes their way, Democrats hope to pick off a handful of Republican incumbents in congressional races on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley, as well as a central New York district that state leaders recently reconfigured to make more favorable to Democrats.

But the GOP could wind up holding all of that ground and has a chance of unseating one or two incumbent Democrats.

Most of the tightest contests are happening in places where voters favored President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump in 2020, but then sent a crop of Republicans to Congress two years later.

The slew of competitive races underscore the hidden political complexity of New York, which is associated with Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but has also given rise to Republican stars like U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference. All three were heavily favored to win reelection Tuesday.

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On Long Island, Republican U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito is in a tough rematch with Democrat Laura Gillen, a former town supervisor he defeated in 2022, but who might do better with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.

In central New York, Republican Rep. Brandon Williams is trying to hold off a challenge from Democratic state Sen. John Mannion. Williams won his seat two years ago by a margin of only around 2,600 votes and this year his district was redrawn to exclude some rural areas where he had garnered support.

In a trio of districts that include parts of the Hudson Valley, three incumbents — two freshman Republicans and a Democrat — are trying to hold on to seats they won by thin margins in the last election.

On both sides, the strategy has been to play to moderate suburban voters while casting opponents as extremists.

In 2022, Republicans in New York City’s suburbs thrived with campaigns that portrayed the nearby city as having become lawless during the pandemic.

Crime rates have dropped significantly since then, but Republicans have continued to press crime as an issue while also trying to capitalize on suburban unease about immigration policy and an influx of international migrants.

Democrats have moved to mount a stronger defense to voters’ concerns about crime and immigration. They have also hammered Republicans on abortion — a tactic that didn’t produce anticipated wins for the party two years ago in a state where abortion rights are not generally seen as under threat.

Republican gains on Long Island were eroded last year when former U.S. Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress after he was revealed to have fabricated his life story and defrauded campaign donors.

Santos was replaced in a special election by Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, who is now running for reelection against Republican Mike LiPetri, a former state lawmaker.

Further out on Long Island, Democrats have turned to former CNN anchor and author John Avlon in an effort to deny Republican U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota a second term.

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Three close contests are in districts that include parts of the Hudson Valley.

In the suburbs north of New York City, Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler faces former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones, a Democrat who previously represented part of the district before its boundaries were redrawn for the 2022 election.

Jones, one of the first two openly gay Black men to serve in the House, portrayed Lawler as someone who “masquerades as a moderate on television but votes just like an extreme MAGA Republican.”

Lawler says Jones is the one masquerading as a centrist, when he is actually liberal.

“People want reasonableness,” Lawler said in an interview before the election. “They want folks who are willing to work across the aisle to get things done.”

The race got extra attention in early October when The New York Times obtained a photo showing Lawler wearing blackface in 2006 at a college Halloween party where he dressed as Michael Jackson. Lawler said the outfit was intended to be an homage to a childhood idol.

Elsewhere in the Hudson Valley, Democratic U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan is locked in a tight race with Republican Alison Esposito, who has served in the New York Police Department and is running on a law-and-order platform. Esposito, if victorious, would be the first openly gay Republican woman to serve in Congress.

Further north, Republican U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro is trying to hold off Democrat Josh Riley in a district that sprawls from New York’s border with Massachusetts across the Catskill Mountains and all the way to the Finger Lakes.

The election is a rematch of 2022, when Molinaro narrowly defeated Riley. Molinaro has perhaps tacked harder to the right than his Republican colleagues in the state, most notably when he recently shared a social media post falsely claiming that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating house pets.

In the one New York congressional race not involving an incumbent, Democrat George Latimer is heavily favored in a race against Republican Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser. Latimer defeated U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a Democratic primary in June, the first member of the progressive band of liberals known as the “Squad” to lose a reelection bid.