House race in 2nd District pits incumbent Andrew Garbarino against entrepreneur Rob Lubin

ALBANY — The candidates in the 2nd Congressional District on Long Island differ on how to make Long Island more affordable and on issues including abortion, securing the border and bringing federal funds back to the district, which lies in both Suffolk and Nassau counties.

Two-term Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino, 40, of Sayville, is a former state assemblyman and lawyer. Rob Lubin, 29, of Lindenhurst, is an entrepreneur in the pro sports marketing field. The South Shore district dominated by Suffolk County has been a GOP stronghold for decades and is important to the party’s continued control of the House of Representatives.

Garbarino didn't respond to requests to be interviewed for this article.

Both candidates — Garbarino, through his campaign website, and Lubino in an interview with Newsday — said a top priority is repealing the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, known as SALT, which hits those with high incomes and high property values particularly hard.

The SALT cap was created by Republicans in Congress, and signed by former Republican President Donald Trump in 2017, before Garbarino began serving in the House of Representatives. 

"One of my most important priorities in Congress is to restore the full State and Local Tax [SALT] deduction," Garbarino has said in his campaign statements. "Not being able to deduct state and local income taxes is a case of double taxation ... Long Islanders deserve to be treated fairly and similarly to the rest of the country."

Garbarino and several other Republican Congress members whose constituents were hit hard by SALT proposed repealing or revising the SALT cap, but it didn't happen.

"My goal is to repeal the SALT cap," Lubin told Newsday. Repeal of SALT "will put money directly back into the pockets of Long Islanders. This was something we lost under the Trump administration and my opponent ... couldn’t do."

Another of Lubin's priorities is protecting the right to abortion nationwide, which was struck down by the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

"My opponent has voted against women’s rights time and time again, putting women in the United States in an incredibly difficult position," Lubin said. "My job is not to take people’s rights away."

Garbarino doesn’t mention abortion in his campaign website.

His record shows he has voted against abortion rights bills. Garbarino has received a "A" grade from the Susan B. Anthony  Pro-Life America group that opposes abortion. The group credits Garbarino for "stopping hard-earned tax dollars from paying for abortion, including abortion travel expenses, whether domestically or internationally, and pushing back on the Biden-Harris administration’s extreme executive actions on abortion."

Garbarino says on his congressional website that he has returned more than $4 million in federal funds to Long Island, including resources to recover from severe storms, for women with late-stage breast cancer, and for flood protection.

Lubin said he would fight for a $25,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers to use toward a down payment. Lubin said he also would bring home more resources to the district to improve decaying roads and other infrastructure and better fund law enforcement. He said he would seek to expand the child tax credit for families and "hold corporations accountable" for a greater share of taxes.

On his website, Garbarino blames the Democratic Biden administration for what he calls a national security crisis at the southern border, saying it continues "to sit by" while criminals are crossing into the U.S. He also said he supports paying to finish the border wall Trump started in his term but didn’t complete and would crack down further on illegal immigration. And he said he accepted Trump’s "complete and total endorsement."

Lubin blames Republicans, including Garbarino, for blocking this year’s bipartisan border security measure. which was supported by President Biden and some of the most conservative Republicans in Congress. The bill was stopped after media reports and Republicans said Trump told Republicans to do so in order to keep the border an issue in his presidential campaign.

"Donald Trump did torpedo that border bill," Lubin told News12 Long Island in a televised September debate that Garbarino didn’t attend. "We owe it to the American people to get things done."

The latest filings show Garbarino had collected $2.9 million in contributions and spent $1.6 million. Lubin’s filing showed he collected $861,602 in contributions and spent $766,304.

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.