FREEPORT, N.Y. – When Democrat Laura Gillen was running last cycle for a New York seat that had been in Democratic hands for more than 25 years, she warned party leaders the race was tight and asked for help. But her pleas fell on deaf ears, and Gillen ended up losing her contest by nearly four points.
Democrats aren’t making the same mistake this time around.
The party is going all out to win back New York’s 4th District, currently represented by embattled GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito. Situated on the south shore of Long Island, it’s the bluest district currently held by a Republican and went for President Joe Biden by almost 15 points in 2020.
“It’s a totally different race for me,” Gillen told us during a campaign stop. “There is acknowledgment that Washington kind of took their eye off the ball on this seat last cycle.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, himself a New Yorker, campaigned here last week, while outside groups are spending huge sums of money to boost Gillen on the airwaves. Recent polling shows Gillen leading D’Esposito.
Shift in strategy: Gillen, a former Hempstead town supervisor, got into the race much earlier than in 2022. She outraised her opponent by $1.45 million and knocked on more than 150,000 doors. And Gillen has retooled her playbook, tackling immigration and the economy head-on.
On the campaign trail, Gillen says undocumented migrants need to be dealt with humanely while also arguing the taxpayers shouldn’t bear the financial burden.
Gillen also wrote a letter to Biden calling for executive action on the border and assailed Republicans for the implosion of a bipartisan Senate deal earlier this year.
“When it came time to try to solve the border crisis, [D’Esposito] sat on his hands,” Gillen said.
D’Esposito pushed back, saying that he voted for a stricter House GOP border security bill, H.R. 2, although that’s gone nowhere in the Senate.
Economic relief has also been central to Gillen’s pitch. She met with a number of Hispanic-owned businesses on Tuesday. During stops that included a Dominican restaurant and furniture shop, Gillen promised to fight for small businesses, calling them the “backbone of the community.”
GOP view: Republicans aren’t giving up hope. Speaker Mike Johnson will be in the district later today while other GOP leaders will swoop in closer to Election Day.
D’Esposito, a former NYPD detective, has focused his message on securing the border and restoring the state and local tax deduction. D’Esposito argues that the issues of immigration, crime and the economy have all become intertwined — an environment he believes benefits Republicans.
“What we’re seeing across New York state has a lot of people fed up,” D’Esposito told us at a campaign event.
D’Esposito also has gone on offense over abortion, vowing not to support a national abortion ban and signing on to a Democratic bill to federally protect IVF.
But there have been surprises in the final stretch that could hurt him. The New York Times reported that D’Esposito gave part-time jobs in his district office to his fiance’s daughter and a woman he was allegedly having an affair with.
D’Esposito insists his hiring practices were above board, and he dismissed the reporting as “a political hit piece.”
More recently, D’Esposito attended former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden where a comedian made racist jokes about Puerto Rico. D’Esposito, who was part of Trump’s motorcade to the rally, distanced himself from the remarks.
Gillen said it’s not enough.
“[D’Esposito] can say, ‘I have a Puerto Rican mother.’ That doesn’t say that it was wrong, that doesn’t condemn using that kind of hateful, racist speech,” she told us.
