Muzibul Huq, Keith Corbett, Laura Gillen, Carrié Solages and Anthony D’Esposito Dr. Muzibul Huh for U.S. Congress, Corbett for Congress, Gillen for Congress, Tommy Bonano, D'Esposito for New York
Get it in your inbox.
During the Trump era, Democrats dominated the suburbs, a dynamic which fueled the Party’s 2018 takeover of Congressand allowed Joe Biden to defeat Donald Trump. But those gains evaporated in the 2021 off-year elections. In New York, Democratic incumbents were swept from power on Long Island. Nassau County Democrats fared particularly poorly – then-County Executive Laura Curran lost her reelection bid, and the GOP routed the Democratic nominee for district attorney.
With the retirement of Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice, the race for an open seat in Long Island’s 4th Congressional District will test whether Republicans can cement their recent political gains in a Democratic leaning suburb. The district is anchored in western Nassau County, and unlike other congressional maps, the boundaries came out relatively unchanged from court-ordered redistricting.
According to some indicators, this should not be a swing district come November. Joe Biden won the district by more than 14 points in 2020. Newsday reported in March that since 2016, no county outside of Manhattan has lost more Republicans than Nassau. Democrats have a large voter registration edge in both the county and district. “I don't think that when you do the pluses and minuses of all the countervailing forces that you could call this race a toss-up,” said Larry Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.
And yet… Biden’s sagging approval ratings, coupled with high inflation and an energized Republican base are thought to make the general election much closer than expected. And, with intraparty tensions over major endorsements in this race, the Democratic Party remains fragmented in the wake of their 2021 drubbing.
“It's certainly competitive. It certainly will be competitive. And I think that two years ago, you would not have thought that possible,” Levy said.
Democratic drama colors primary campaigns
Four Democrats are vying for a chance to succeed Rice in the Aug. 23 primary. Former Town of Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen has Rice’s blessing and is emphasizing reproductive rights. Malverne Mayor Keith Corbett is touting his bipartisan appeal in the conservative village. Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages promises to turn out voters in his faithful legislative district. Elmont doctor Muzibul Huq’s campaign most likely hasn’t gained enough momentum to be competitive.
Gillen leads in fundraising, according to most recent filings, and an internal campaign poll conducted this month found she was far ahead of her opponents. The data, shared by Gillen’s campaign, showed Gillen with roughly 47% of the vote, 37 points ahead of her nearest competitor, Solages, who had 10% of the vote. Corbett had 5% of the vote, and 39% of those polled were still undecided.
Gillen has also secured the endorsement of the incumbent, Rice, along with House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries and a slew of key liberal groups including 32BJ SEIU and New York League of Conservation Voters.
But in the spring, as Democratic candidates announced their intentions to run for Rice’s seat, fissures emerged among Long Island party leaders on whom to support. In March, Nassau Democratic Committee Chair Jay Jacobs, who also leads the state Democratic Committee, sent an email to party donors asking them to hold off on supporting candidates they may have long standing relationships with until they spoke with him.
The letter earned a rebuke from Rice, who said on Twitter, “No wonder Democrats in Nassau County lose with this kind of leadership.”
A few days later, Jacobs told Newsday Gillen "would have a very tough time winning in this congressional seat, given what I know about the voters and the opposition that she would have." At the time, Jacobs touted the candidacy of Corbett, the Malverne Mayor and law chair of the county Democratic Committee.
In a call with City & State, Jacobs downplayed the spat. “I haven't ever listed my support. I have not endorsed anyone,” he said. He said polling showed Gillen leading the Democratic primary. And that while he believes Gillen is a “tougher” general election candidate for Democrats, he said that “if she wins the primary, we'll all be working to see to it that she wins.”
In an increasingly diverse district, turnout is the key variable
During the 2000s, the diversification of Nassau County, aided by Republican corruption scandals, helped Democrats begin to overcome a vaunted GOP political machine. The 4th District as it’s drawn now is just over half white, 16% Black, 7% Asian and 22% Latino.
In 2017, Gillen won the race for Town of Hempstead supervisor, the first Democrat to do so in 112 years. Then Democrats won a slew of state Senate races in 2018, helping the party retake the state Senate. Gillen narrowly lost reelection in 2019.
Democrats’ gains came crashing down in the 2021 red wave. The losses led to finger pointing among Democrats. Others cited low turnout and lack of effort to motivate the Democratic base – many fewer Democrats voted compared to Republicans, despite Democrats' voter edge of 100,000 people.
The party is now at its lowest point of power in Nassau County since the 1990s – controlling no countywide offices or supervisorships. The fallout from those deep Democratic losses shadows the race to replace Rice, as candidates debate who can win.
Party insiders expect weak turnout for the Aug. 23 primary and say it could be a wild card. In 2014, the last time the 4th District had an open seat, just 13,561 Democrats voted in the primary. As of June 2022, there’s roughly 230,000 active Democrats registered to vote in the 4th District. In last month's gubernatorial primary, roughly 14% of Nassau County Democrats participated in the election.
A party insider with knowledge of the campaign who spoke on the condition of anonymity laid out what they believe to be the pathway to victory for the candidates.
“Who triumphs?,” asked the strategist. “Is it going to be the candidate with the most money and the name (recognition)? And that's Laura. Versus the person with, it would appear, … the party support, which is Corbett,” they said. “Or do you have the possibility that Carrié Solages, with a very low turnout, is able to mobilize his (legislative) district to come out and provide enough votes?”
Solages, who is Haitian American and whose sister is Assembly Member Michaelle Solages, is banking on the loyalty of his base. His legislative district entirely overlaps with the new 4th Congressional District, and Solages noted the growth of the Haitian American population in Nassau County.
“I saw the poor turnout last November, and I said we could do better than that,” Solages told City & State. “People want a real campaign. They want to see someone earn their vote, and that's what I'm doing. I'm walking door to door. I've knocked on over 6,000 doors.”
Competing visions for the Party
Gillen said voters are motivated by the recent rollback of abortion rights and threats to democracy, concerns she can speak to from her political and personal experience.
“What I'm hearing from voters is they're concerned about our democracy. They're concerned about the loss of women's right to autonomy over their own body, which I think I'm uniquely qualified to be an advocate for as the only woman in this race.”
Corbett, the Malverne Mayor who is also law chair of the Nassau County Democratic Committee, has cited his election in a traditionally Republican village as a selling point to voters. And he believes his past work on Democratic campaigns bolsters his party bonafides. But he has focused on appealing to the center. Corbett has been endorsed by a bevy of localofficials including state Sen. John Brooks, state Sen. Kevin Thomas and Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy.
“I represented Barack Obama, I represented Joe Biden's campaign. You can't get more Democratic than me, but we’ve got to get back to compromise and to the middle,” said Corbett. “The fact of the matter is our party right now has a branding problem.”
“Not only am I going to win the primary, not only am I going to go to Washington,” said Corbett “But we’re going to actually stand up, put our shoulders back as Democrats, be proud of the true Democratic platform, not this leftist, socialist contingent that's trying to infiltrate this party, and we're going to ensure Americans know that we're fighting for them.”
When asked if running to the right or center was mimicking a strategy from Curran’s 2021 County Executive race, Corbett said the campaigns cannot be compared. “I'm not going to get into why she lost. That's a whole other article. But I don't think it has anything to do with the politics of the election,” Corbett told City & State.
Solages said he was motivated to run for Congress in part due to Democrats’ poor performance in 2021. The five-term legislator believes his position representing unincorporated hamlets and record delivering constituent services will be a boon in a lower turnout primary – and the general election.
“People are tired of that same mold, Laura Curran, that mold. That’s why she lost. People are tired of that,” he said. “That moderate Democrat that thinks that they could just raise a lot of money and hire people from out of state to run their campaigns.”
Whoever wins the primary will face the same conundrums of prior Democratic campaigns, weighing the combination of voter persuasion and base mobilization.
Levy noted that long term demographics appear against Republicans in Nassau. “Trump plays in a lot of precincts in Suffolk but many fewer in Nassau,” Levy said. But in the short term the GOP can still hold onto power. “The same forces that cost Laura Curran and Todd Kaminsky are still pretty much in play.”
NEXT STORY: In Lee Zeldin’s congressional district, GOP candidates attack each other as ‘insiders’
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.
Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link
If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.
Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.
If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page. Save Settings
A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.
Help us tailor content specifically for you: