'Carpetbagging' accusations have a long history in Long Island's 1st Congressional District

When 1st Congressional District Democratic candidate John Avlon told a crowd in March that he wanted to make life easier "in" — not "on" — Long Island, he handed his opponent an attack line uniquely commonplace to the eastern Suffolk district during campaign season.

Avlon's Republican opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville), repeatedly seized on Avlon's "in Long Island" faux pas as an indication that the former CNN analyst doesn’t understand Suffolk County because he's not really from there.

That characterization has a name: carpetbagging, a term coined after the Civil War to describe Northerners who traveled to the South to run for office. It's a term that's been lobbed at candidates in Long Island's eastern district — an area heavy in second homes for Manhattanites — since at least the 1970s.

Avlon is at least the fifth to face the accusation, in some cases including an insinuation that candidates are using their part-time Hamptons addresses as an entryway into public office. He says Sag Harbor is his primary residence and counters that LaLota is the one who actually lives outside the district, in Amityville.

Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia said voters there can spot an outsider.

"We have venture capitalists that come in and decide, 'Oh, on a lark, for a hobby, I want to be a congressman,' " Garcia said. "The voters of Suffolk County, mostly Democrats, but even Republicans, have rejected those types.

"This is a close-knit community. They're informed, they're intelligent, and they can smell opportunism."

But former Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop, who had faced several Republican outsider candidates during his tenure in the district, disputed the notion that Avlon is new to it.

"I will say John doesn't fit into ... those categories," Bishop said. "He's a guy who has affection for the district, roots in the district and decided that he would like to represent the district in Congress."

A history of carpetbagging

The carpetbagger label is a tried and true line of attack.

The late Otis Pike, a Democrat who represented the 1st Congressional District from 1961 until 1979, accused his 1972 Republican challenger, Joseph H. Boyd Jr., of getting the tax bills for his Sag Harbor home mailed to his Manhattan residence. "He is essentially a summer resident," Pike told The New York Times that year, referring to Boyd as a "Johnny‐come‐lately." Boyd lost the election, securing 38% of the vote over Pike's 50%, according to vote tallies compiled by the Ronkonkoma Review. 

In 2006, former professional soccer and team handball player Italo Zanzi, a Republican, moved to Suffolk to challenge Bishop and lost by 27 percentage points. Bishop went on to defeat Republican business owner Randy Altschuler in the 2010 and 2012 congressional contests. During the 2010 race, Altschuler had received a disproportionate amount of funds from those outside the district, campaign records show, suggesting little district support. Altschuler moved to St. James in 2007 and then put his home on the market after his second loss, according to previous Newsday reports.

The campaign of former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin dubbed 2018 Democratic challenger Perry Gershon, a Manhattan resident who changed his voting registration to his East Hampton home shortly before the election, "Park Avenue Perry." 

Then in 2022, crypto-backed Republican candidate Michelle Bond changed her residency to Port Jefferson even though she had just purchased a mansion in Potomac, Maryland, according to public records, and ran for the seat. LaLota defeated Bond in the primary, and later went on to win the general election.

Christopher Galdieri, author of "Stranger in a Strange State: The Politics of Carpetbagging from Robert Kennedy to Scott Brown," said accusations of carpetbagging often play a larger role in primaries rather than the general election, when voters are more likely to decide by party affiliation than anything else.

"Our partisanship amongst voters is so strong that if you've got a 'D' after your name, or you got an 'R' after your name, people in your party are going to vote for you, even if they grumble about how you got here or how you won the primary," said Galdieri, a politics professor at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.

Why CD1?

The 1st Congressional District is a longtime swing district. It was held by Democrat George Hochbrueckner from 1987 to 1995; Michael Forbes, a Republican-turned-Democrat, from 1995 to 2001; Republican Felix Grucci, 2001 to 2003; Bishop, 2003 to 2015; and Zeldin, 2015 to 2023. 

The second-home community makes it easier for those with Hamptons homes like Gershon or Avlon to switch their voter registration.

Bishop, whose family roots stretch back to 1643, said the people of the Twin Forks may be more leery of transplants than elsewhere in the district.

"The East End seems to have more sense of place and sense of history," Bishop said. "I just think that that's something that matters on eastern Long Island. I'm not sure it matters [in] other places in the district."

The 2024 candidates

Avlon, a former CNN anchor who left his job in February to run, changed his voting registration to Suffolk County in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Avlon, who also has a Manhattan residence, has for months disputed the notion he is an outsider, noting he purchased his home in 2017 and has rented in Sag Harbor since 2009. LaLota lives outside the district in Amityville but has stressed his lifelong Suffolk roots.

In June, LaLota told Newsday he had been looking at homes in the district, but was concerned about high interest rates. In a phone interview Thursday, LaLota told Newsday he has no immediate plans to relocate to the district.

“Living seven or so miles outside of the line hasn't impeded my ability to deliver for my fellow Suffolk County residents,” he said.

Avlon’s Manhattan condo was enrolled in the New York City co-op/condo tax abatement program until February, according to online records from the New York City Department of Taxation and Finance. The program is only available to those who claim their building as their primary residence. Avlon has said the condominium’s board made the decision to enroll and that the designation does not indicate his residency.

Still, LaLota has tried to cast Avlon as the carpetbagger in the race, although he hasn't explicitly used the word. He instead opts for "Manhattan liberal" or "elitist" on social media and in TV ads.

LaLota, 46, touts his longtime career in Suffolk government. Before becoming a congressman, he was the chief of staff for the Suffolk County Legislature and a Republican commissioner at the Suffolk County Board of Elections.

"As a proud lifelong Long Islander, I am calling on CNN pundit John Avlon [D-Manhattan] to stop lying to Long Island voters about his residency," LaLota said in an Aug. 9 campaign email blast. "The facts clearly show Avlon resides at his $4 million Manhattan mansion, not his $2 million Hamptons summer pad as he claims."

Avlon, 51, said he stayed in his Manhattan home because of his job at CNN, but said he lived full time in Sag Harbor during the pandemic years.

"This is where my home is," Avlon told Newsday. "Yes, I've got an apartment in the city. But again, my opponent doesn't even live in the district."

"This is a place that I've always loved, and it's where I felt my heart was."

By Vera Chinese

vera.chinese@newsday.com@VeraChinese

Vera Chinese covers Suffolk County government and politics. She joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.