Competitive New York House races become a fight to define the middle in final weeks

In the fight for control of the House this fall, a trio of New York Republican lawmakers are pitching themselves as moderates willing to stand up to their own party as they aim to prove their wins in Democratic-leaning districts two years ago were not a fluke.

GOP Reps. Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Anthony D’Esposito framed themselves in recent conversations with CNN as moderate and bipartisan, exposing the metrics with which the new battleground taking shape in the Empire State are measured: a race for the middle.

But it’s a tightrope. The three freshmen lawmakers support former President Donald Trump in districts President Joe Biden won in 2020. Their first terms have been defined by a historically unproductive Congress. And they’ve at times embraced the right-wing rhetoric of their party, particularly when it comes to immigration and border security.

It’s here in New York, particularly in the suburbs of central New York, the Hudson Valley and Long Island, where the balance of power for the House of Representatives will likely be decided, and it’s through these competitive races where red cracks in the state’s reputation as a blue fortress are becoming more exposed.

D’Esposito said of the Democrats, “They must get paid every time they say the term ‘MAGA extremist,’ because it is very clear that I am not an extremist. I have been criticized by the far-right flank of my own party for not being conservative enough.”

When asked how he talks about Trump, Lawler told CNN, “You can sit and talk about personality, or you can focus on the substance of the issues.”

And the lawmakers argued that their relationship with conservative House Speaker Mike Johnson, who supports banning abortion nationwide, shows they have gotten their constituents a seat at the table. Johnson is expected to campaign with the New York Republicans in the coming weeks, sources told CNN.

“From my perspective, the speaker has given me the opportunity to leverage outcomes for the people I serve,” Molinaro said. “I’m in the meetings every week at his office. We fight for the things we care about. There’s a reason that certain bills don’t come to the floor that have provisions that members like me don’t like.”

Recent scandals, including Lawler admitting that he wore blackface as a college student in 2006 and D’Esposito reportedly giving both his lover and his fiancée’s daughter part-time jobs in his district office, have complicated matters.

Their Democratic challengers called out the Republican incumbents for being anything but moderate, tying them to the dysfunction that has defined the House GOP majority, highlighting instances in which they voted with the right wing of their party and exploiting their allegiance to Trump.

“It’s like being the fastest person in a race of snails,” Democrat Josh Riley said of his opponent, Molinaro, who pitches himself as the fourth-most effective member this term.

The Democrats also did some distancing of their own, by pointing out instances in which the party brand in New York has taken massive blows and saying indicted New York City Mayor Eric Adams should resign.

“I’m not afraid to speak up against my own party when I think it’s not doing something right,” Democrat Laura Gillen, who is facing off against D’Esposito after narrowly losing to him in 2022, told CNN.

Traversing the state, speaking with over 40 individuals across the developing battleground of New York, the verdict on who is winning the race to the middle is mixed. Instead of uniformity, streets are packed with lawn signs for both parties.

The high-stakes messaging war has blanketed the airwaves, with the trio of races being among the top 20 most expensive House races in the country. Democrats, afraid of repeating their 2022 failures here, have outraised their Republican counterparts. In Molinaro’s race alone, advertisers, campaigns and outside groups have spent over $37 million.

“There is no path to the majority in the House of Representatives that does not involve flipping key seats right here in the state of New York,” Democratic former Rep. Mondaire Jones told CNN. Jones is running against Lawler for the seat he previously represented before redistricting thwarted his reelection plans last year.

Winning his race by 1,820 votes last cycle, Lawler knows that each interaction with a voter plays an outsize role and could potentially tip the scales. He often starts his stump speech by paraphrasing a quote from former Democratic New York City Mayor Ed Koch, “If you agree with me on nine out of 12 things, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 things, go have your head examined.”

And he’s building his campaign around voters like Brad Turner, a disillusioned Democrat who told CNN that in the Black community, “We give our votes to certain politicians and we get nothing for it.”

Lawler convinced Sue Kryger, a retired nurse and registered Democrat, to support him after their conversation at the Stony Point Fall Festival, because Kryger said Lawler assured her that he would never support a national abortion ban. Kryger considers herself “pro-life” but believes women have the right to an abortion.

A few days later, though, his pitch as a moderate fell short.

Patty Copeland, a retired media negotiator and registered Democrat, walked up to Lawler after he spoke at a candidate forum with Jones in northern Westchester to question his record.

“I’m sick of the lying,” Copeland, who has been on the fence over who to support, told CNN after her conversation with Lawler. “I tried really hard because I know he’s very bipartisan, but he’s also, as far as I’m concerned, a ‘Trumper.’ When it’s time to vote, is he going to for us, or is he going to vote to stay on the good side of Trump?”

Lawler pushed back: “The way I have governed has been bipartisan, has been across the aisle.”

At their next candidate forum, it was Jones’ turn in the hot seat when he was asked point-blank by a voter, “What do you think about defunding the police?”

Jones faced backlash in 2020 for saying, “We need to end mass incarceration and legalize cannabis and defund the police” and has been doing damage control ever since, particularly as crime remains a top issue for voters and as New Yorkers have grown increasingly frustrated with the state’s loosening bail reform laws.

“I never voted to cut funding for law enforcement, and always voted to fund the police,” Jones said in response to the pointed question.

Meanwhile, Sandra Abegg, a Haitian migrant, told CNN she is supporting Jones because she is tired of the Republican Party’s rhetoric.

Unprompted, Abegg had a message for Republicans who have fueled a firestorm of misinformation when they spread false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, injecting the town with chaos. Molinaro has repeated such claims.

“My pet is a cat, and I love my cat,” Abegg said.

The stakes over winning moderates on the topic of abortion are very high.

Lawler, D’Esposito and Molinaro are hoping their promise to never support a national abortion ban will convince voters that they are moderates who reflect the values of their Democratic-leaning constituents.

The GOP lawmakers also point to their support of in vitro fertilization as another example of aligning with their moderate districts. Lawler, D’Esposito and Molinaro have signed on to a Democratic-led bill to protect IVF federally.

But the Democrats argued instances in which the Republicans voted to restrict access to abortion this term disqualify them from being trustworthy on the issue.

The Democratic candidates often reference their opponents’ votes to prevent service members from using taxpayer dollars to get abortion services, potentially subject doctors who perform abortions to criminal penalties, and prohibit states from putting limitations on federal funds going to crisis pregnancy centers as examples.

Jones claimed of Lawler, “You cannot accept his word when he says he wouldn’t vote for a national abortion ban.”

Riley and Gillen, who are again facing off against Molinaro and D’Esposito, respectively, after losing to them in 2022, say being able to scrutinize their GOP opponents’ voting records is their biggest edge this time around.

“He can say whatever he wants, and he does,” Riley told CNN, “but voters can now look at his voting record.”

Impact of recent scandals

D’Esposito and Lawler have dismissed recent allegations against them that raise ethical concerns, but their Democratic opponents are hoping the scandals can help tip the scales in their direction.

D’Esposito told CNN that he never had a personal relationship with the woman The New York Times reported he had an affair with and put on his payroll. He had previously not denied the details of the initial story, but called it “a slimy, partisan ‘hit piece.’”

But, when asked to explain his personal relationship with the hire, D’Esposito said, “It doesn’t matter. It was someone that we hired in the office to do a job. She did the job when the opportunity to work there was no longer — that’s it.”

Gillen, whom D’Esposito defeated by fewer than 10,000 votes two years ago, claimed the allegations expose deeper issues of favoritism.

“This is a disturbing continued pattern of behavior for Anthony D’Esposito,” she told CNN.

Meanwhile, roughly an hour north, Lawler is working to maintain inroads with moderates after acknowledging that he darkened his face as part of a Michael Jackson Halloween costume, which he has called an “homage.”

“I’ve addressed it head-on,” Lawler, who has apologized for his actions 18 years ago and said he would not do today, told CNN.

Jones said the photograph makes Lawler “unfit to serve.”

“How can anyone who doesn’t believe that what he did in 2006 was wrong continue to represent a diverse community like this?” Jones added.

Voters from Lawler’s district have had a range of reactions.

Teyana Cowan, a registered Democrat who identifies as Indigenous American, told CNN she is voting for Lawler and is not concerned about the 2006 photograph.

“We know what blackface is. We’ve seen it,” Cowan told CNN. “That didn’t look like blackface. That looked like a fan dressing up as Michael Jackson.”

But Sharon Rivera, a Puerto Rican independent small-business owner who has not decided who she is voting for, said the photograph disqualifies Lawler for her. “There’s still bigotry, racism, you know, and if you painted your face black 20 years ago, you think you love us brown folk now? No.”

A group of New York teachers and union workers were not afraid to say the quiet part out loud as they traversed the state on a bus tour calling for common ground: Democrats dropped the ball in New York during the 2022 midterms and cost their party the majority in the House.

“After the results of last cycle, we decided that we needed to really make sure that this was something that we prioritized as a union,” Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, told CNN.

Person is working to ensure her members, which amount to approximately 30,000 people in each district, turn out for these races that are expected to be determined by razor-thin margins.

Gillen, who attributed her loss to D’Esposito in 2022 in part to “lack of resources,” said Democrats were not making that mistake again.

That’s in large part to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has made these races his brainchild and helped Democrats launch a new coordinated state and national campaign.

Rep. Pat Ryan, one of the few New York Democratic incumbents to hold on to their competitive seats last cycle, reflected on a dinner the state’s delegation had shortly after the 2022 midterms where lawmakers discussed in blunt terms how to fix their mistakes.

“We needed a brutal after-action review where we are just honest about what we got wrong, and Hakeem immediately was like, ‘Let’s dive in and really make investment and built this sort of engine,’” Ryan told CNN.

Meanwhile, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who represents upstate New York, reflected on the playbook she helped employ to help Republicans win two years ago.

“I was the person at the leadership table last cycle who demanded that we invest in New York,” Stefanik said. “We have built a model that works.”

And it will all come down to undecided independent voters like small-business owner Jasmin Aviles in Lawler’s district.

“I’m going to weigh out each person and see which one is best,” she told CNN.