The Southampton and Brookhaven Town Democratic Committees will co-host a virtual forum featuring the Democratic candidates to represent New York’s First Congressional District on Thursday at 7 p.m. via Zoom video conference. Members of the public interested in watching have been asked to register at bit.ly/3LZNrB8.
Suffolk County Legislators Bridget Fleming and Kara Hahn, and Jackie Gordon, who served on the Babylon Town Board for 14 years, are the candidates to be featured.
The event is limited to registered Democrats only, and attendance will be capped at the first 1,000 people who sign up.
The New York State Legislature voted this month to redraw the state’s congressional districts in a way that makes a Democratic gain of three seats more likely. The First District will both expand westward to encompass more Democratic-leaning territory and lose the Republican-heavy western part of Southampton Town to the Second District. Where the First District once spanned the five East End towns, Brookhaven, and part of Smithtown, it will now stretch from the East End into Nassau County, encompassing parts of Islip, Babylon, Huntington, and into Oyster Bay, apparently concentrating more Democratic-leaning voters.
The First District seat is up for grabs as Representative Lee Zeldin, who is serving his fourth term, is seeking election to governor of New York. The redrawn map of New York’s First District has significant implications for the Democratic candidates and their Republican counterparts, Robert Cornicelli and Anthony Figliola. Though the district has historically flipped between Democrats and Republicans, Mr. Zeldin won four consecutive elections, three of them by a wide margin. Where the district voted for former President Trump by four percentage points in 2020, the redrawn district went to President Biden by 11 percentage points. Democrats see an opportunity to turn the district from red to blue.
