NY-04: State Sen. Kevin Thomas kicked off his campaign for New York's 4th Congressional District on Wednesday, making him the third notable Democrat to enter the race for the bluest seat in the country held by a Republican.
Thomas, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 10, scored a huge upset in 2018 when he unseated Republican incumbent Kemp Hannon, who had served in the legislature continuously since 1977. The unknown Thomas received almost no assistance from the Senate Democrats' campaign committee and ran no TV ads, but as Newsday's Yancey Roy put it, he ran an aggressive door-knocking campaign that "strategically wooed minority voters in a demographically changing district" with a burgeoning South Asian population.
Hannon's district had favored both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but he'd survived many challenges by close margins during his long career. This time, though, he seemed to be caught off-guard and failed to spend most of his considerable war chest. The end result was a 51-49 victory for Thomas that Roy characterized as New York's biggest surprise on an election night filled with them. The win also made Thomas the state's first Indian American member of the Senate.
Two years later, Thomas again won by a 51-49 margin, but following redistricting, the state's new court-drawn map made his 6th District considerably bluer: The old version had supported Joe Biden 53-46 but the new one would have backed him 67-31. As a result, Thomas won a third term last year by a comfortable 59-41 spread.
Thomas, who would also be the first Indian American to represent New York in Congress, now joins two others for the right to take on freshman Rep. Anthony D'Esposito: former Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen, who was last year's Democratic nominee, and attorney Sarah Hughes, an Olympic gold-medal figure skater. D'Esposito will be a top target next year by virtue of the fact that the Long Island-based 4th District voted for Biden by a 57-42 margin—the president's widest margin in any district represented by a Republican.
But the Biden numbers don't tell the full story. In the years since that romp, Democrats have struggled in Nassau County, where Biden won by a comfortable 54-45. 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. Gillen, meanwhile, lost reelection as supervisor four years after her own shocking win to lead the state's second-largest municipality after New York City.
Gillen nonetheless emerged as the Democrat's standard-bearer last year to hold the 4th District following Rep. Kathleen Rice's retirement (the outgoing congresswoman had given Gillen her endorsement). Both D'Esposito and the GOP's gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin, 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 52-48 win.
Democrats, however, are hoping that last year's low turnout among many of the party's core voters will reverse itself next year, particularly with a presidential race on the ballot. In addition, there's a chance that the state's court-imposed congressional map could change as the result of a pending lawsuit.