GOP hopes to transform New York into battleground as party leaders focus on crime
Cami Mondeaux
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Republican leaders are beginning to focus their attention on New York, hoping to build on their midterm successes and transform the traditionally blue state into a key battleground ahead of the 2024 election cycle.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the fourth-highest-ranking House Republican who leads the House GOP conference, launched a battleground fund earlier this week to boost Republican candidates in New York as part of the party’s efforts to defend its slim House majority in 2024. But that fund is just the beginning as GOP leaders seek to pour resources into the Empire State, according to Stefanik.
STEFANIK CREATES ‘BATTLEGROUND FUND’ IN NEW YORK TO HELP DEFEND GOP HOUSE MAJORITY
“The battleground fund is going to be one of many entities that will … likely be investing in these critical seats,” Stefanik told the Washington Examiner. “In any targeted race, there’s a lot of investments.”
Republicans flipped four seats in New York alone during the 2022 cycle, accounting for about one-third of the GOP’s midterm gains that helped secure the House majority. Those seats were flipped by freshman Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Marc Molinaro, George Santos, and Mike Lawler, who unseated former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney.
All four are up for reelection in 2024, and each of their races is considered to be a toss-up except for Santos’s, which is predicted to lean Democratic, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Meanwhile, Molinaro and Santos must also grapple with fundraising debt lingering from their expensive midterm campaigns, which could put them at a disadvantage.
However, Stefanik expressed confidence that the GOP could defend all four seats — and even expand their reach in the Empire State, pointing to several “pickup opportunities” in the Hudson Valley.
“New York delivered the House majority when we flipped four seats, and it’s ground zero for not only holding the majority but potentially expanding the majority,” Stefanik said. “The Battleground Fund is a way for us to invest and get out the vote [and] to educate voters … and that’s not just Republican voters but independents and Democrats as well.”
In doing so, Republicans will attack Democrats on several fronts in an effort to paint the party as too extreme for centrist voters. GOP lawmakers will return to a similar playbook used in 2022, according to Stefanik, especially when it comes to focusing on violent crime in New York.
“If you look at the results in 2022, Democrats reaped what they sowed,” Stefanik said. “Their policies created a historic, catastrophic crime crisis, and it’s a direct result of their failed bail reform and radical far-left district attorneys.”
House Republicans have recently turned to rising crime rates in big cities such as New York as a way to criticize Democrats for what they consider to be soft-on-crime policies. GOP leaders on the House Judiciary Committee plan to hold a field hearing next week examining violent crime in New York, seeking to attack Democratic policies in the state.
Stefanik will join the committee hearing as a way to ensure “we are countering radical Democrats [and] that we are exposing the crime crisis,” she said.
“I’ll tell you what the victims have in common: Their families know that these heinous violent crimes are a result of Democrats like Alvin Bragg, [Gov.] Kathy Hochul, and Democrats in the delegation,” Stefanik said.
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All 435 seats are up for grabs in 2024 as Republicans seek to hold their slim majority in the lower chamber. Of these, 42 are considered competitive, with most of those held by Democrats compared to Republicans, giving the GOP a slight advantage as it prepares for the next election cycle.
However, of the 42 competitive seats, 18 are held by Republicans in districts that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, compared to just five Democrats who must defend their seats in districts carried by former President Donald Trump. That means there are just enough vulnerable GOP-held seats to keep things competitive heading into the next election cycle.