The executive board of the Brookhaven Town Democratic Committee has endorsed Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming in her bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination to represent New York’s First Congressional District. Brookhaven is the largest town in Suffolk County and home to almost 65 percent of registered voters in the district.
The move follows endorsements of Ms. Fleming’s campaign by 21 members of the committee. Tony Speelman, its chairman, endorsed Ms. Fleming at her campaign launch in May of last year.
“I am pleased and humbled that this important executive board has endorsed me as nominee for the First Congressional District,” Ms. Fleming, a former Southampton Town councilwoman who was re-elected to the Legislature in November, said in a statement. “I have informed the board that I do not take their support lightly. The members of the B.T.D.C. executive board have been there for our party, in good times and bad. Considering that we have such a narrow majority in Congress, it’s not too much to say that the American Dream hangs in the balance, and I know that with Brookhaven Democrats at my back, I can carry on this fight, that we will win the Democratic nomination, and that we will take back the seat in November.”
Ms. Fleming has competition for the Democratic nomination: Suffolk Legislator Kara Hahn is also seeking it. Yesterday, Ms. Hahn’s campaign issued a list of 51 Brookhaven Democratic Committee members who have publicly endorsed her campaign, including Assemblyman Steve Englebright and Nancy Goroff, the Democratic Party’s 2020 candidate for Congress from this district. Previously announced endorsements have come from Brookhaven Town Councilman Jonathan Kornreich and former Legislator Vivian Viloria-Fisher.
Rich Schaffer, chairman of the Suffolk Democratic Committee and the supervisor of Babylon Town, told The Star on Tuesday that the committee “is going to continue to honor its commitment to allowing for an open primary, and allowing all of our committee people to make their decision on who they believe would be the best candidate. I personally support Bridget, but that doesn’t mean my personal opinion should dictate how individual committee people determine their support.”
Representative Lee Zeldin is serving his fourth term in the seat. He is seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for governor of New York. Republicans seeking their party’s nomination to succeed Mr. Zeldin are Robert M. Cornicelli, a veteran and advocate for veterans and the developmentally disabled, and Anthony Figliola, a former deputy supervisor of Brookhaven Town who announced his candidacy last week.