Voters cast their ballots at the P.S. 256 in Brooklyn on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
Democrats in New York unseated two first-term Republican incumbents in the U.S. House on Tuesday, one in the Hudson Valley and the other in a district that includes Syracuse, rolling back some recent GOP gains in the state.
New Yorkers were expected to play an outsized role Tuesday in helping determine control of the U.S. House as Republicans clung to suburban seats they won two years ago by seizing on fears of crime, and Democrats tried to claw them back by warning that a right-wing Congress might ban abortion.
Democrat Josh Riley beat Rep. Marc Molinaro, a freshman incumbent in a district that stretches from the Massachusetts border to the Finger Lakes region.
Riley, an lawyer from Ithaca, campaigned on his support for abortion rights as well as calling for stronger border controls to counter Republican criticisms of federal immigration policy. Before he ran for office, Riley had once been a policy analyst at U.S. Department of Labor and previously served as general counsel to former U.S. Sen. Al Franken.
In central New York, Democratic state Sen. John Mannion defeated Republican Rep. Brandon Williams. Williams was considered one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents this year because state Democratic leaders redrew his district to make it more favorable to their party.
Other closely watched congressional races that involved first-term Republicans unfolded on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley.
The slew of competitive elections 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. Jeffries, Ocasio-Cortez and Stefanik all kept their seats Tuesday.
On Long Island, Republican U.S. Rep….
Read the full article here
