Zeldin-Goroff Race Approaches $20 million In Spending

The race for the 1st Congressional District seat between incumbent U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican, and Democratic challenger Nancy Goroff has already cost some $19 million, with the heated frenzy of the final two weeks before Election Day still to be tallied.

According to the latest mandated filings with the Federal Elections Commission on October 14, Mr. Zeldin’s campaign has raised about $7.5 million for this election cycle and spent $5.6 million.

Ms. Goroff essentially kept pace on spending through the middle of the month, with more than $5.4 million in receipts wrung up. But with total fundraising of $5.9 million, the challenger’s campaign entered the home stretch of the race with only a reported $423,443 in the bank and a nearly 4-to-1 disadvantage in funds available, according to her FEC disclosure reports.

Spending in the race has been swollen immensely by spending by groups unrelated to the two campaigns, largely on television advertisements attacking their favored candidate’s opponent. About $4.1 million was spent in Ms. Goroff’s favor, $2.8 million of that on attacking Mr. Zeldin, while $3.8 million was spent in Mr. Zeldin’s favor, with all but $167,526 going to attacking Ms. Goroff, according to an analysis of spending by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit group that compiles and tracks data on money in U.S. politics.

The largest influx of outside spending came from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican Super PAC, which spent $2.8 million on campaign efforts directed entirely at attacking Ms. Goroff. The Republican Jewish Victory Fund directed another $778,565 at attacks on Ms. Goroff, one of only two House races that the group spent money on.

In Ms. Goroff’s corner, 314Action, a group dedicated to supporting the election of scientists to public office, spent a little more than $1.8 million attacking Mr. Zeldin. The Democratic-controlled political committee House Majority PAC directed $903,548 toward the NY-1 race, mostly on positive advertising for Ms. Goroff.

More than a dozen PACs in all pumped a total of about $8 million into the contest, almost three times the amount spent on the seat by outside PACs in 2016 and more than five times as much as in 2018. In 2014, the year Mr. Zeldin first won the seat away from former Congressman Tim Bishop, outside PACs spent $8.7 million on the race.

Both sides benefited from bundled contributions from those affiliated with common groups or businesses who muster contributions for their chosen candidate.

Mr. Zeldin got $133,000 from members of the Pro Israel America PAC and $61,552 from the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Ms. Goroff’s largest contributions came from Renaissance Technologies, a Setauket investment company where her husband works, which garnered Ms. Goroff $215,885, and $120,000 from employees at the State University of New York, where Ms. Goroff was the head of the chemistry department at Stony Brook University. She also received numerous contributions from around the academic and technology world from employees of Google, Amazon and Yale and the University of California.