Fleming, LaLota Confident as They Approach Home Stretch in House Race

With Election Day less than three weeks away, both camps in the 1st Congressional District race are cautiously optimistic about their chances of replacing Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin as the East End’s representative.

Republican Nick LaLota, 44, the chief of staff for the Suffolk County Legislature and a former county Board of Elections commissioner, said this week he wants to “emphasize solutions to Long Island’s problems” if he is elected, and he repeated the GOP mantra of this year’s midterms that high inflation and rising crime are both the fault of the Democrats.

Fleming, 62, the Democratic candidate, represents the East End in the Suffolk County Legislature and was formerly a Southampton Town councilwoman and Manhattan prosecutor. With a growing number of Republicans falling in line behind the false claims of former President Donald Trump that he was cheated out of the 2020 election, Fleming said democracy itself may be the biggest issue on the ballot this year.

“Our fundamental freedoms are at stake in this election, and what has happened with women’s reproductive rights has set us back 50 years,” Fleming said. “But at the same time, voters are clearly very concerned about the cost of living. Folks want a steward who will have the backs of ordinary Long Islanders in Washington.”

East End residents will get an opportunity to hear the two candidates’ views on the issues when The Express News Group sponsors a Zoom debate at 6 p.m. on Friday, October 28. There will be free public access to the live event, and the video will be posted afterward at 27east.com.

The candidates had been expected to take part in a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters, but that event had to be canceled because of scheduling conflicts.

Fleming is expected to attend the Hampton Bays Civic Association’s meet the candidates night at 7 p.m. on Monday, October 24, but LaLota is unable to make that event. The Civic Association meets at the Southampton Town Community Center at 25 Ponquogue Avenue in Hampton Bays.

The 1st District, like other districts across the state, was initially redrawn in a futile Democratic effort to improve their chances in the 2022 mid-terms. But after that effort was shot down in the courts, the boundaries are similar to 2020. The district includes the five East End towns, all of Brookhaven, and a portion of Smithtown.

Democrats have a slight edge in party enrollment in the district, but Conservative voters, who typically vote for Republican candidates, eliminate that advantage. Politico has declared the district a “Republican lean” in a year in which the GOP is widely expected to reclaim a majority in the House and possibly the Senate as well.

In the most recent Federal Election Commission filings, Fleming has outraised LaLota by more than $1 million. Fleming had raised $2,169,232 through September 30 to LaLota’s $936,744. Her campaign also has outspent his campaign by a similar margin. Fleming had $385,014 on hand, while LaLota’s campaign showed a balance of $269,041.

So far, the race has been largely absent of outside money, but that could change in the campaign’s final weeks. “We really haven’t seen any super PACs from either side get involved yet,” said LaLota. “They have in the four or five cycles previous to this.”

He said the only PAC money his campaign has received had come from the With Honor political action committee, which seeks to elect veterans on both sides of the political aisle and paid for billboards supporting his campaign. LaLota is a U.S. Navy veteran and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

Seth Cohen, Fleming’s campaign manager, agreed that political action committees had been largely absent, but he said that could change as both parties focus on a relatively small number of swing districts.

He rejected claims, made in a recent Politico article, that the Democratic National Committee had ceded the race, saying he was in touch with national officials monitoring the race on a regular basis.

“Bridget has a great profile, as a former prosecutor, effective legislator, and Town Board member,” he said. “That’s appealing to voters. We’re seeing that across the district, North and South forks.”

The candidates have taken starkly differing stances on the issues.

This week. LaLota repeated his claim that rising gas, oil, and natural gas prices, key components in a stubbornly high inflation rate that remains above 8 percent despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive policy of raising interest rates, could be alleviated if the United States focused its attention on extracting more natural gas and oil from American deposits.

“Implementing any solution is going to take time,” he said, “but the Green New Deal Bridget supports wouldn’t have an impact until 20 years from now.”

He said President Biden went to OPEC “to beg for oil” and was turned down. “We are burning the oil,” he continued. “That oil is going to come out of the ground somewhere somehow. Rather than begging from OPEC, I’d tap into our known 20-year, 43-billion barrel supply.”

LaLota also accused Democrats of being soft on crime, arguing that bail reform and a porous border were two factors in rising crime. He said he would not support a federal bail reform plan proposed by Democrats and accused Fleming of seeking to prevent local law enforcement agencies on Long Island from enforcing federal immigration laws.

Fleming acknowledged that inflation “feels like a pay cut” to the average voter, but she said LaLota’s calls for increased domestic energy production would be a short-term fix, if one at all, at a time when oil companies are reporting record profits.

She said the Republican answer to any economic issue is to pursue tax policies that “favor wildly profitable corporations and billionaires while harming ordinary working Americans. That’s not a recipe for a sustainable economy.”

Fleming pointed to the recent endorsement of the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association as proof that she was not soft on crime.