Letters

On November 3, I will be voting for Nancy Goroff to represent our congressional district, and I’d like to tell you why I think Nancy is exactly the type of person we desperately need working for us in 2020.

I’ll be honest: I voted for our current representative, Lee Zeldin, in 2014. I thought that he, as a young, passionate lawyer, state senator and veteran, was the right choice to represent our district.

But his unwavering support of Donald Trump completely turned me off to him. I have never been more against a person running for office in my life than I was (and am) against Trump, and Mr. Zeldin is today what he was in 2016 — one of Trump’s loudest supporters who continually puts his allegiance to Trump above doing what is best for our congressional district.

Again, I’ll be honest: I had never heard of Nancy Goroff until June of this year, when she won the Democratic primary. I was rooting for Perry Gershon and, to his credit, when Ms. Goroff defeated him, he was extremely classy and immediately endorsed her.

I then researched her career and couldn’t be more impressed: She graduated from Harvard University with a degree in chemistry in 1990 and earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1994. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan, Goroff moved to Stony Brook in 1997 to join the faculty of Stony Brook University. There, she has served as associate provost, interim dean of the graduate school, and, prior to taking a leave of absence to run for Congress in 2020, as chairwoman of the Chemistry Department.

If elected, she’ll be the first woman in Congress with a Ph.D. For me, a father of three girls, she is a tremendous role model proving that the sky is the limit for women.

That I had never heard of her until two months ago is another feather in her cap, because clearly she’s humble — a quality of character that we desperately need more of from our elected representatives these days. She is in every way a sharp contrast to Lee Zeldin and the Republican Party that practically worships the ground Trump walks on.

Especially in light of this awful pandemic we’re battling, we need more people in Congress who rely on science and medical experts — not conspiracy theories — to guide us by making rational choices. And, quite frankly, we need more women in Washington.

That’s why I’m voting for Nancy Goroff.

David Burros

Riverhead