Lee Zeldin, who represented New York’s First Congressional District from 2015 through 2022 and was the Republican Party’s nominee for governor of New York in the November election, has launched a political action committee.
The former congressman, who lives in Shirley, is chairman of the Leadership America Needs Political Action Committee. Its mission, according to a March 1 statement, is to support Republican candidates “who are committed to advancing Lee Zeldin’s efforts to grow the diverse coalition of first-time Republican voters” for Mr. Zeldin in the gubernatorial election, which he narrowly lost to the incumbent, Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The PAC is to focus on helping candidates’ outreach to “the Jewish, Asian, Hispanic, African American, and other minority communities,” according to the statement, and endeavors to move “Millennial” and “Gen Z” voters into the Republican column. Millennials are roughly defined as those born between 1981 and 1996, and Gen Z as those born between 1997 and 2013. While it is conventional wisdom that people tend to become more conservative as they age, a recent report in The Financial Times posited that members of these demographic groups are in fact becoming less conservative over time.
The 2022 gubernatorial race in New York was surprisingly close: In a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2-to-1, Mr. Zeldin earned 47.4 percent of the vote against 52.4 percent for the governor. His strong showing at the top of the ticket in Democratic-leaning New York is understood to have positively impacted down-ballot elections, notably Long Island’s congressional races, which helped to flip control in the House of Representatives to Republicans.
Mr. Zeldin capitalized on voters’ concerns about violent crime to make significant inroads among urban voters, particularly Asian-Americans. “The rightward shift within NYC’s Asian American communities can and must be replicated by Republicans all across the US,” Mr. Zeldin wrote on Twitter on Monday. “We have the vision and ideals most Asian Americans are passionately looking to for their families and future.”
Sounding like a candidate on the campaign trail, Mr. Zeldin spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Saturday. Democrats, he said, “are unhappy with the Democratic policies and the Democratic Party as a whole. But they aren’t going to just swing to the Republicans on their own. It’s a bad assumption we are making. Instead, what we need to do is to show up over and over and over again. . . . We cannot relinquish the cities, we cannot relinquish the suburbs. . . . If we’re on offense confidently, that will be the path for us to earn a red wave, because in 2022 we did not earn a red wave nationally. In ‘24 we must, to save America.”
A representative for Mr. Zeldin did not reply to an email seeking comment.
