Long Island Republicans secure their turf
Jennifer DeSena, left, was reelected North Hempstead supervisor and Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine won the race for Suffolk County executive. Credit: Barry Sloan
Republicans on Tuesday completed a three-year capture of Long Island’s most powerful elected offices. Nobody was shocked this time out. In a decisive win, Ed Romaine gets to succeed Democrat Steve Bellone as Suffolk County executive — a bookend to Bruce Blakeman’s 2021 unseating of Democratic Nassau County Executive Laura Curran.
Suffolk’s Republicans won a supermajority in their legislature, while Nassau’s chamber remained one mere seat short of two-thirds. The most populous town governments are painted red; North Hempstead reelected Jennifer DeSena, who in 2021 became the first Republican to win the supervisor’s job in three decades and who escaped any damage for initially backing the indicted fabulist George Santos for Congress last year. Add to that Tuesday’s GOP recapturing of Long Beach city government and its retention of the mayoralty of Glen Cove.
Bright-red Long Island now poses a striking contrast with deep-blue New York State, with its big New York City influence, in terms of governance. In a time of deep party polarization nationwide, the difference is striking. All the state executive offices — governor, comptroller, attorney general — remain in Democratic hands, as do both U.S. Senate seats, and the party holds supermajorities in both state legislative houses. Yet most state lawmakers representing Long Island these days are Republican.
Republican ex-Rep. Lee Zeldin’s outsized performance last year against Gov. Kathy Hochul had echoes. Rebelling against the powers in Albany — especially Hochul’s defunct proposal to allow the state to overtake local zoning on new housing — made effective strategic sense and good business for the GOP. The same went for bail reform, tolls on vehicles entering Manhattan, the cost of living, and the migrant influx. Whatever the governmental merits, those issues made for marketable talking points.
Long Island thus locks down its undisputed role as the base of Republican operations in the state. Yet Westchester Democrats have been holding onto their suburb-based power, staving off the GOP there. Democrats scored wins for district attorney in Columbia and Dutchess counties. The New York City Council remains overwhelmingly Democratic and progressive. But it wasn’t a shutout. In the East Bronx, a Republican won a council seat, the first GOP win in the borough in nearly 20 years.
Even though national elections differ from local ones, the now-complete rise, or comeback, of the Long Island Republicans augurs well for their fight to protect turf and hold on to all four congressional seats (given the likelihood that the toxic Santos won’t be their CD3 nominee).
Republican candidates got a dose of help from a third party that isn’t a party at all — “blank” voters registered without affiliation. They may reflect a mainstream that doesn’t concentrate much on politics. Their role as swing voters helps explain how Democrats can outnumber Republicans in enrollment on Long Island, yet be wiped out at the polls.
Democratic loyalists voiced differing reasons for another lost year: state and city postures that alienated mainstream voters; poor recruitment of candidates; failure to develop a base year-round; stubbornly anemic turnout; and a faction of the party off the Island taking radical positions. “The local party leaders have showed no ability to change or adapt during this three-year run,” said a disgusted Democratic player.
At the state capital, it’s Republicans who have nowhere to go but up; on Long Island, it’s Democrats. Partisan cycles always change, but the mystery is when. Right now, it’s clear whose turf will be whose indefinitely.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
