GOP hopes Mamdani's big night will hurt Democrats on Long Island

WASHINGTON — It was a great night Tuesday for Democratic Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the winning progressive candidates he backed in several congressional races.

Now Republicans on Long Island are hoping to turn Mamdani's big night to their own advantage.

Republicans were already painting Democrats with a socialist-by-association brush Wednesday after Mamdani's candidates took primary wins over more mainstream and veteran party members.

Primary targets were the two Democratic House incumbents from Nassau County, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) and Rep. Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre), both of whom describe themselves as party moderates determined to remain middle-grounders. It is an attack line that observers say Republicans will emphasize throughout the campaign, even as Democrats seek to link their opponents to President Donald Trump.

Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters zeroed in on Suozzi as "a rubber stamp" for "the high tax, pro-illegal immigrant, anti-law-and-order agenda of the far left," in a statement congratulating Michael LiPetri for his primary victory. Wins by Suozzi and LiPetri set up a rematch of Suozzi's 2024 victory.

Meanwhile, Gillen was described by the campaign of Jeanine Driscoll, her fall challenger, as "a perfect fit for the new Mamdani-Democrat Party."

"Laura Gillen isn’t a political moderate, she just pretends to be," Driscoll strategist Tom Dunham said.

Independent political analysts and partisan operatives said it is inevitable that the Democratic Socialists of America-aligned victories in New York City on Tuesday will become fodder for LiPetri, Driscoll and their allies against the two Long Island Democrats.

"Mamdani is the best thing to happen to suburban Republicans since Ronald Reagan," veteran New York Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said.

But he noted that while Republicans may try to link Suozzi and Gillen by party association to Mamdani, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx, Queens) or other Democratic socialists or progressives, they need to worry themselves about President Donald Trump’s plummeting approval numbers.

"Republicans want to talk about anything except their own record ... costs that keep climbing, a war of choice bleeding household budgets dry," said Andrew Grossman of Battleground New York, a coalition of groups that backs New York Democratic congressional candidates.

A Suozzi campaign spokeswoman, Kim Devlin, said Gruters’ claim about him "is absurd." She said, "Tom Suozzi has spent years standing up to the extremists on both the left and the right and fighting for the common-sense middle." 

Gillen, in a statement, said, "I have no idea what New York City voters are thinking, but on Long Island, we’re focused on affordability and common sense, not extreme, harmful outrage politics and partisan bickering."

Both Suozzi’s and Gillen’s districts have greater Democratic voter enrollments than Republican — though both also have large numbers of independents.

Sheinkopf said a centrist positioning makes sense in that environment. Democratic politicians "who do battle with Trumpniks on one side and the Mamdani extremists on the other have higher probabilities of survival," Sheinkopf said.

This tightrope balance, however, could prove tougher if the Mamdani gang's rhetoric gets more extreme, he said.

Focus on Israel

One takeaway from Tuesday’s New York City results was that pro-Israel support proved to be a vulnerability for some Democrats, said Democratic political consultant Ryan Adams, who grew up in Bethpage and has worked on elections at all levels of government.

"The amount of moral clarity with which a candidate spoke about Gaza was a major factor in determining how trustworthy they are," he said.

The campaigns of both Suozzi and Gillen have received tens of thousands of dollars in additional dollars in recent weeks raised by pro-Israel lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

But Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said that’s an illustration of "the vast differences between congressional districts, even within a few miles of each other." While being pro-Israel might be a vulnerability in some Brooklyn and Manhattan neighborhoods, he said, "it is overwhelmingly positive in western Nassau County and Northeast Queens.

"There are large Jewish populations, much of whom have not jumped on the Mamdani bandwagon, and they — like others who see themselves as more politically moderate — will look to the Suozzis and Gillens as bulwarks against leftist or anti-Israel politicians," he said.

History of centrism

More generally, observers also say it’s important to remember the history of Long Island politics. Going back decades, Long Islanders in Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — have exerted moderation or independence, they say.

"Regardless of the headlines and hyperbolic claims on the left and right," Levy said, "the reality is that DSA candidates have been successful pretty much only in urban areas — and not in the more moderate suburban and upstate communities, where most of the competitive seats for Congress and state legislature are located."

Former Long Island Reps. Carolyn McCarthy, Pete King, Steve Israel, and Rick Lazio were all considered moderates, despite the push-pull of the national party. The current group — Suozzi, Gillen, and Republican Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) and Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) — all position themselves as independent-minded and not always beholden to the party line.

Donald Nieman, a Binghamton University history professor, said Democratic primaries across the nation have shown "that moderates are doing well in most places and progressives are doing well in districts where you'd expect them to be strong. No surprise."

"LiPetri and Driscoll will try to lump Suozzi and Gillen in with a Democratic Party that they will claim is becoming red," he said of Republicans. "It's a new talking point in a year in which they (Republicans generally) are on the defensive."

Newsday's Matthew Chayes contributed to this story.