New York Democrat Laura Gillen announced on Wednesday that she would seek a rematch with freshman Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito in the 4th Congressional District, a Long Island constituency that's the bluest seat held by a Republican according to Daily Kos Elections' calculations of the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The move fills a hole for Democrats in a rare Biden district where, to date, there'd been zero chatter about potential challengers. Indeed, Gillen, a former Hempstead town supervisor, had not publicly expressed interest in another campaign for this southern Nassau County district in the months since her 52-48 defeat saw this seat flip to the GOP, prompting the Long Island Herald to call her launch a “surprise.”
But Gillen had not been shy about going after the new congressman or in tying him to his far more infamous colleague right next door, Rep. George Santos: She’s repeatedly tweeted out a picture of a smiling Santos and D’Esposito each giving a thumbs up inside the Capitol and reupped that photo Tuesday after news broke of the former’s indictment. D’Esposito has repeatedly called for his fellow Nassau County Republican to resign, but Gillen has continued to remind her followers about the existence of the still-active “Santos D’Esposito Nassau Victory Committee.”
The presidential numbers, however, don't tell the full story. Joe Biden carried the 4th District 57-42, but Democrats have struggled in Nassau in the years since that romp. In 2021, Republicans decisively flipped the district attorney’s office and scored an upset in the race for county executive after caricaturing Democrats as weak on crime, a playbook they’d take statewide the following year. The GOP got some more welcome news a few months later when Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice decided to retire after four terms; soon after, the party consolidated behind D’Esposito, a Hempstead town councilman and former New York Police Department detective.
Several Democrats showed interest in running to succeed Rice, but Gillen soon emerged as the frontrunner. The candidate had shocked the GOP establishment of Hempstead, a massive town with a population of just under 800,000, when she narrowly unseated a Republican incumbent in 2017 by just a single point to become its first Democratic supervisor in more than a century. Gillen lost reelection in a similarly tight race two years later but remained a prominent figure in local politics, and Rice endorsed her ahead of her lopsided primary victory.
The general election was a much tougher ordeal, however. Both D’Esposito and gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin, who represented neighboring Suffolk County in the House, worked to portray Democrats as unconcerned about crime—attacks that seem to have stuck. Gillen, for her part, focused on abortion, but while she ran slightly ahead of Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, it wasn’t enough. Zeldin carried the 4th District 53-47, according to Bloomberg's Greg Giroux, while D’Esposito pulled off a 4-point victory.
Gillen kicked off her second House campaign Wednesday by once again emphasizing abortion rights and gun safety while also declaring that the incumbent “has aligned himself” with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green.
It remains to be seen whether she’ll face any serious intraparty opposition this time, though one old critic seems fine with the idea of having her as the Democratic standard-bearer again. While Jay Jacobs, the controversial head of both the state and county parties, said last year he doubted Gillen could win a general election, he responded to her launch Wednesday by declaring she “proved herself a very hardworking candidate in the last election, and she certainly merits serious consideration for the next.”
How do you make a campaign ad that voters actually want to watch? We're discussing that critical question on this week's episode of "The Downballot" with leading Democratic ad-maker Mark Putnam, who's been responsible for some of the most memorable spots in recent years. Putnam details his creative process, which always starts with spending time with candidates to truly learn their story—and scouting locations in-depth. He then walks us through the production of the famous Jason Kander-assembles-a-gun-blindfolded ad that went viral and explains why, believe it or not, you always want footnotes in your attack ads.
