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.”
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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.
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.
