The road to 2027 runs through New York.
The Empire State is once again expected to play a decisive role in determining which party controls the House of Representatives — four years after Republican gains in New York helped produce the GOP’s four-seat pickup and shift the chamber’s balance in 2022.
Political strategists and analysts nationwide are closely watching New York, despite its Democratic lean, because several high-profile contests remain among the country’s few true swing-district races.
“We have a chance in New York to play an important part in winning back the House majority,” state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs said.
“Hakeem Jeffries will be the next speaker of the House,” Jacobs added, referring to the Brooklyn Democrat and House minority leader.
Jacobs predicted that Democrats would regain the chamber comfortably, with every incumbent winning reelection and the party potentially adding two seats in the Hudson Valley and upstate New York.
State Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox also acknowledged New York’s importance as the GOP holds a narrow 218-214 edge, alongside one independent member and two vacancies in the 435-seat House.
“Of course New York is important. The New York races were important in the Republicans taking the House in 2022,” Cox said.
New York’s competitive districts helped Republicans capture the House four years ago, when a red wave carried the party into the majority.
Republicans gained two seats on Long Island and two more in the Hudson Valley.
In the Third District, covering Nassau County’s North Shore and part of Queens, Republican George Santos defeated Democrat Robert Zimmerman after Democrat Tom Suozzi chose to run for governor rather than seek reelection.
Joseph D’Esposito also defeated Democrat Laura Gillen in the Fourth District, which includes Nassau County’s South Shore and beach communities.
In the lower Hudson Valley’s 17th District, Republican Mike Lawler pulled off an upset victory over Democratic incumbent Sean Patrick Maloney, who was then chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Republican Marc Molinaro defeated Democrat Josh Riley in the redrawn 19th District.
Republicans also benefited from gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin’s stronger performance at the top of the ticket in the competitive House districts compared with Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likewise blamed Hochul’s weak showing in the swing districts for contributing to Democratic losses.
The political environment was different four years ago, when then-President Joe Biden faced backlash during the midterms and Democrats were hurt by lingering concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation.
Democrats largely reversed those fortunes two years later. Better prepared during the 2024 presidential election year, they won back three of New York’s four most competitive House seats.
Suozzi returned to his former district after Santos was exposed as a fraud and expelled from the House. He won the seat in a February 2024 special election, then held it that fall with a three-point victory over former Assemblyman Michael LiPetri.
Gillen also defeated one-term incumbent D’Esposito in a rematch for the Fourth Congressional District, while Riley prevailed over Molinaro in their rematch in the 19th District.
Only Lawler survived, defeating former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones in 2024.
This time, four seats remain competitive.
3rd District – Rep. Tom Suozzi vs. Mike LiPetri
Incumbent Suozzi is facing off against Mike LiPetri, an attorney and former state Assembly member, who narrowly lost to Suozzi by 3-percentage points in a 2024 election.
KEEP READING: George Floyd-Era Police Watchdog Chair Charged Over Witness Name Sale
The district encompasses suburban nabes in Nassau County’s North Shore, while also including parts of Queens and Huntington in Suffolk County.
Suozzi is serving his second stint in the House of Representatives after representing the district from 2017 – 2023, breaking to run for governor in 2022, where he lost in the Democratic primary to Governor Kathy Hochul.
But Republican Michael LiPetri is giving Suozzi, a former Nassau County executive, a run for his money.
A Super PAC with Trump ties donates about $10 million into LiPetri’s race. The challenger has snagged an endorsement from Suozzi’s hometown police department, which had supported Suozzi in the election just two years ago.
4th District – Rep. Laura Gillen vs. Jeanine Driscoll
Incumbent Gillen is facing off against Driscoll, the receiver of taxes in the town of Hempstead.
A series of diverse communities along Nassau County’s South Shore make up the swing district, which was won by a Republican in a 2022 election before Democrat Gillen took over the seat in 2024.
Gillen had run against Republican Anthony D’Esposito in 2022, before defeating him in 2024. D’Esposito, the inspector general in the US Department of Labor declined to challenge Gillen this year.
Gillen has come under fire for previously taking credit for funding programs she’d voted against and has been accused of being a “serial tax hiker.”
17 District — Rep. Mike Lawler vs. Cait Conley
Lawler faces off against Democrat Cait Conley, an Army combat veteran and former national security adviser in the Biden Administration.
An analysis by the tracking firm Ad Impact found that more than $50 million has been spent combined on ads for Lawler-Conley race — $30 million by Republican groups and $20.9 million by Democrats.
That’s the second-highest ad spending on a House race in the country, behind only House District 1 in North Carolina, where $50.4 million was spent.
21st District — Anthony Constantino vs. Blake Gendebien
The race in the red-leaning 21st district in the North Country is surprisingly competitive after Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik decided not to seek re-election.
Democrat Blake Gendebien, a farmer, is running against firebrand Republican businessman Anthony Constantino, who doesn’t live in the district.
In a sign the Democrats believe they have a shot at winning the seat, their House Majority PAC spent $1.4 million, including on an ad rapping Constantino for supporting Trump’s trade war with Canada.
Constantino is a Trump booster who won the GOP primary against an assemblyman backed the local Republican and Conservative Party leadership after Trump endorsed him. The owner of a printing company, he has poured $17 million of his fortune into the race.
The Conservative Party ballot, which typically backs a Republican candidate in House races, was left blank.
The split on the political right over Constantino, coupled with frustration over higher fuel and other day-to-day costs, provides Gendebien and Democrats a “perfect storm” to win the seat, said campaign strategist O’Brien “OB” Murray.
“It’s a fractured Republican Party,” Murray said. “When the Republican and Conservative parties are not in sync, it’s a problem.
“It provides an opportunity for the Democrats to take advantage of the split. It could be the perfect storm for the Democrats.”
Murray was involved in the last North Country race when there was a split on the political right in 2009. He worked on the campaign of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in a three-way race that included Republican Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens.
Owens won the race after then-Vice President Joe Biden stumped with him the eve of the election.
Vice President JD Vance will stump with Constantino in the district on Monday to rally the Republican base and other conservative-minded voters to back him.
Murray said Vance is the “perfect surrogate” to tell Republicans that keeping the Stefanik seat “is too important” to cede to Democrats over party infighting.
Additional reporting by Vaugh Golden