Possible GOP Successors To Zeldin Still Waiting In The Wings

Two Democrats have already declared themselves as candidates for the 1st Congressional District seat in the 2022 election — one that appears likely to be vacated by U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, who is running for governor of New York.

No Republicans have yet voiced plans to seek the party’s nomination to the seat, however, leaving some to speculate that Mr. Zeldin may still be hedging his bets in an uphill battle seeking statewide office in a heavily Democratic New York.

But seasoned political watchers say that Mr. Zeldin does not appear to be campaigning as though he’s unsure of what office he’s seeking — he seems all in for governor.

“He has been campaigning hard, considering the election is still more than a year away,” State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said. “He’s campaigning like it’s the October before the election. But at the same time, it’s kind of curious, the fact that nobody on the Republican side has announced. It’s not like it’s late in the game, but it’s been extraordinarily quiet.”

Neither Mr. Zeldin nor representatives from his office have responded to numerous requests for comment — as has been the case with all requests for comment or information from the Express News Group since a January 8 article that spotlighted the extensive falsehoods, inaccuracies and misrepresentations about the 2020 election in a speech Mr. Zeldin gave on the floor of the House of Representatives just hours after the January 6 attempted insurrection at the Capitol and Congress was certifying the Electoral College vote count.

Mr. Zeldin, one of former President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters in Congress, was among the 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted on January 6 to reject lawful election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Jesse Garcia, the chairman of the Republican Party in Suffolk County, said that the lack of declared candidates is not due to any hesitancy about Mr. Zeldin’s plans. Rather, he said, it’s merely the party getting its “ducks in a row” before putting its weight behind a chosen candidate.

“We do things more methodically than the Democrats in how we move forward through the process,” Mr. Garcia said. “The Republican Party is working with its partners in the Conservative Party on how we are going to move forward. We are confident that it will be a Republican who will succeed Lee Zeldin, and there are a number of possible candidates who have expressed interest in the race.”

Mr. Garcia said that the party is cognizant of not wanting its candidates to fall too far behind the Democrats in the critical fundraising race of a congressional election.

Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, a Democrat who is seeking reelection to another two-year term in her county post this fall but has also declared herself a candidate for the congressional seat in 2021, has raised some $300,000 for the federal campaign already.

“I don’t know what the Republican leadership is thinking, but I’m sure they see this as a critical race for them — I know the Democrats see it as a potential ‘red-to-blue’ race. I would think they will want to know for certain soon who their candidates are going to be,” said Ms. Fleming, who will make her second bid for the 1st District seat in the House of Representatives.

Another Democratic county legislator, Kara Hahn of Setauket, the deputy presiding officer of the legislature, is also seeking the nomination for the 1st District seat.

Mr. Garcia said the party will begin its screening process in August and that he expects the party leadership will have announced a favored candidate by Election Day 2021.

The party nominating convention will be held in February 2022 and the party hopes to avoid a costly and potentially divisive primary like the ones that have bogged down the Democratic opposition to Mr. Zeldin in recent election cycles.

Candidates for both the state and federal races will have to submit nominating petitions by mid-April — which would be the definitive point of no return for Mr. Zeldin in his choice of which office to seek — and party primaries for all races, if necessary, will be held in June.

Since rather narrowly defeating former U.S. Representative Tim Bishop in 2014, Mr. Zeldin has fairly easily won reelection three times on the back of strong Republican turnout, especially in Brookhaven Town.

Perhaps not surprisingly then, the names most often mentioned as possible GOP successors come from within Brookhaven town, where Mr. Garcia is also the town party chairman. Two Republican councilman, Kevin LaValle and Neil Foley, are both said to be seeking the Republican nod, and would each bring substantial polling weight to the GOP ticket. Both won election to their current seats on the Brookhaven Town Board by wide margins in 2019 in election districts with more than 50,000 voters.

New York State Senator Anthony Palumbo, who was elected to the Senate in November, said this week he would not seek the congressional seat.

The longtime state assemblyman, who served with Mr. Zeldin when he was a state senator, said he suspects that the discreet positioning of potential Republican candidates for the seat may simply be delicacy with Mr. Zeldin’s status in the governor’s race not being set in stone yet, and deference to the county committee.

“Even though he is the presumptive nominee, I imagine it’s impolite to jump out too far in front when there are still others in the race,” Mr. Palumbo said.

Mr. Zeldin has been endorsed by the vast majority of party leaders and has been anointed the state GOP’s nominee to challenge Governor Andrew Cuomo, or another Democratic candidate. But at least one other Republican, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, is still officially declared as a candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination and could force a primary against Mr. Zeldin. Andrew Giuliani also has announced that he will be a candidate for the Republican nomination for New York governor.

“We will be giving the Republican candidate for the 1st District all the support and time they need to raise the resources they need,” Mr. Garcia said. “To win back the House, you need the 1st Congressional District.”