Nicholas LaLota, the chief of staff to the Republican majority in the Suffolk County Legislature, is the apparent Republican Party nominee to represent New York's First Congressional District, based on unofficial results of the primary election held on Tuesday.
With all election districts reporting, unofficial results posted by the Suffolk County Board of Elections had Mr. LaLota winning 12,368 votes, or 47.03 percent of the vote, followed by Michelle Bond, who had 7,289 votes and 27.71 percent, and Anthony Figliola, who had 6,569 votes and 24.98 percent.
Mr. LaLota previously served as Republican commissioner for the Suffolk County Board of Elections. Ms. Bond is chief executive of the Association for Digital Asset Markets and previously worked for a law firm. Mr. Figliola is a former deputy supervisor of Brookhaven Town and is currently executive vice president of Empire Government Strategies.
Tom Emmer, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, issued a statement on Tuesday night congratulating Mr. LaLota on his primary victory. "Democrats' failed agenda of reckless spending and pro-criminal, anti-law enforcement policies will doom them on Long Island. Nick is the solutions-oriented conservative who will hold this seat in November," he said.
Mr. LaLota will face Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, the Democratic Party's candidate, in the Nov. 8 general election. The Democratic Party primary was canceled after Legislator Kara Hahn, her colleague in the Legislature, suspended her campaign. Jackie Gordon, who had been a candidate in a previously redrawn First District, is now a resident of the Second District and ran there.
Ms. Fleming told The Star on Tuesday night that Mr. LaLota has "talked about being an America-first, Trump-style candidate that is directly appealing to a very extreme part of the American electorate. It's my feeling that here on Long Island, there's a more levelheaded approach to government, and folks are tired of exploitation of the extremes. They want to see honest, competent representatives, which I find heartening."
"We're trying to reach across the aisle or find stakeholders throughout communities to tackle the tough challenges our communities face," Ms. Fleming said, "and deliver solutions without trying to further partisan goals. I'm not sure I see that on the other side."
In an unusual circumstance, three of Long Island's four seats in the House of Representatives are open this year. An August primary election is also unusual, a result of New York State's redrawn congressional and Senate district maps.
New Yorkers voted to create the Independent Redistricting Commission to reform the redistricting process in 2014. But the commission, comprising an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, could not agree on a redrawn map, and the matter was relegated to the Legislature, where Democrats hold a majority in the Assembly and Senate.
Republicans accused the Legislature of gerrymandering, the manipulation of electoral boundaries to favor one party over another, practiced in many states and by both major parties. Justice Patrick McAllister of Steuben County declared all of the Legislature's redrawn district maps unconstitutional on March 31, blocking their use. The State Court of Appeals sided with the Republican complainants in a split decision announced on April 27, and Jonathan Cervas, of the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University, was appointed by the Court of Appeals to draw new Legislature and congressional district boundaries.
Consequently, primary elections for Congress and the State Senate were postponed from June 28 to Tuesday. As Republicans did not challenge maps for the State Assembly, the primary election for those seats was held on June 28.
The First Congressional District is little changed from its previous footprint, growing slightly at its northwestern boundary to edge farther into Smithtown. The district is up for grabs, as Representative Lee Zeldin, a fourth-term incumbent, is the Republican Party's candidate for governor of New York.
The general election race in the First District is expected to be close. While midterm elections usually favor the party that does not control the White House, a string of recent legislative wins for President Biden and the abundance of investigations into Mr. Trump's business practices in New York and his actions in the wake of his loss to Mr. Biden have upended conventional wisdom.
While Mr. Zeldin won four consecutive elections in the First District, all but one of them by a wide margin, his prospects in a statewide race appear dim. Emerson College and Siena College polls released early this month gave Gov. Kathy Hochul 16 and 14-percentage-point leads over Mr. Zeldin, respectively. A SurveyUSA poll conducted between Aug. 17 and Sunday for WNYT-TV in Albany is bleaker still for Mr. Zeldin, giving the governor a 24-point lead, or 55 percent to 31 percent.
This story has been updated since it was first published.
