Nancy Goroff and John Avlon, candidates for the Democratic Party’s nomination to challenge Representative Nick LaLota in New York’s First Congressional District, signaled unity in their belief that Mr. LaLota can be defeated in the Nov. 5 election during a candidates forum hosted by the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee at LTV Studios in Wainscott on Monday.
Ms. Goroff, a former scientist and professor with Stony Brook University, lost to former Representative Lee Zeldin by 10 percentage points in 2020. Mr. Avlon, an author, columnist, and former CNN anchor, announced his candidacy on Feb. 21 and is running his first campaign.
Perry Gershon, who as the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2018 narrowly lost to Mr. Zeldin, served as moderator.
The candidates repeatedly tied the incumbent to former President Trump, whom Mr. LaLota has endorsed, and the dystopia they predicted should Mr. Trump be re-elected. They broadly agreed on issues within and outside the district, from affordable housing and climate change to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, with the only sharp words between them coming, ironically, in response to a question about negative campaigning.
But the recent example of a Democratic victory in last month’s special election in the Third District, a shared sense that Mr. LaLota is vulnerable, and the belief that democracy itself is on the line in the fall election united the candidates and spectators in the mission to flip the district from Republican to Democratic control after 10 years of Republican rule.
To defeat Mr. LaLota, “we need to inspire voters,” Ms. Goroff said. “We need to hold him accountable and show a contrast with him, and we need to make sure voters believe we represent their values and will represent them” in Washington. In her opening statement, she had excoriated the incumbent for “not protecting our democracy; he is not there for the people of this district.” She said she is running “to make sure that we are protecting our democracy, including reproductive freedoms, protecting our kids from gun violence and bullying in school,” as well as to combat climate change and threats to clean water.
The election “is about being able to communicate clearly and play offense,” with the latter in too-short supply in recent elections, Mr. Avlon said. Representative Tom Suozzi’s victory in the Third District showed that “we need to seize the center.” To win in a swing district, Democrats must win the majority of independent voters and Republicans who are opposed to Mr. Trump, and that can only be accomplished with a more aggressive approach, he said. “That’s what I can do, and that’s what I will do.”Mr. Avlon listed stopping Mr. Trump, housing affordability, climate change, and transportation as priorities for the district. Restoring the full state and local tax deduction known as SALT, which was capped at $10,000 in the Republican-led tax overhaul of 2017, and expanding the child tax credit would put more money in residents’ pockets, he said.
Ms. Goroff agreed, but added that “for those who have lived in Suffolk County for a long time, you know how complicated different layers of government are,” and promised a “top-notch, fully transparent constituent services program” to connect people to the appropriate elected official or agency. “That’s how we convince people that democracy is working for them — making it easy and accessible.”
Republicans will attack the Democratic nominee on the migrant issue, Mr. Gershon said, asking the candidates how they would approach the topic on the campaign trail. “We need comprehensive reform that includes both border security and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children and attended school here — “and people working and paying taxes here,” Ms. Goroff said. All Mr. LaLota has tried to do on immigration, she said, is impeach Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Department of Homeland Security. “We need to hold him accountable.”
What’s needed is more legal, and less illegal, immigration, Mr. Avlon said. “We know the way is through comprehensive immigration reform” and more border security so that people have faith that the system is working. Mr. LaLota’s statements show a “contempt for bipartisanship,” he said, calling the incumbent a “Trump flunky” who would rather fund-raise than solve problems.
Mr. Gershon noted that Ms. Goroff lost to Mr. Zeldin by 10 percentage points in 2020. How would this year be different? Mr. Zeldin is not the opponent, she answered; rather, the incumbent is “a freshman nobody can even remember.” The Covid-19 pandemic has abated, “so you can talk to people face to face, which is important.” She also learned a lot as a first-time candidate, she said, and has made connections across the district through her work as co-founder of the Long Island Strong Schools Alliance, formed in 2021 in response to “three right-wing extremists” elected to the school board in Smithtown.
Of Mr. Avlon, who lives in Sag Harbor and Manhattan, Mr. Gershon asked how he will overcome Republican charges of carpetbagging. He has deep roots in the community, Mr. Avlon said, but New Yorkers understand that the quality of the candidate is most important, “and they came from all over,” possibly referring to candidates such as Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, both of whom were called carpetbaggers when they ran successfully for the United States Senate from New York.
The attack “doesn’t hold water at a time people know more than anything that we need to win,” he said. Such attacks are in fact a badge of honor, he said, noting that he is “being attacked from folks all over because I disrupted the dynamics of this race.” The House Majority PAC, which works to support Democrats, “put this back on the map,” he said of the district. “I’ve shaken up the race, because folks know Nick LaLota is in real trouble with me in the race.”
A tough primary fight could damage the nominee, Mr. Gershon said, asking the candidates if they would pledge to refrain from waging a negative primary campaign. Ms. Goroff said that primary campaigns excite and energize voters and are how campaign teams are assembled. “My focus is on telling my story and why people should support me,” she said, but added that “we have already seen some comments from my opponent which I find objectionable and ‘mansplaining.’ ”
Mr. Avlon asked what she was referring to. She quoted Mr. Avlon as saying that “Nancy Goroff has already run once and we saw how that worked out.”
“I don’t think talking about the results of the last election mathematically is a negative personal attack,” Mr. Avlon replied, telling Ms. Goroff that “your team put out a negative fund-raising email about me” and asking if she would renounce it.
It is important for people to know Mr. Avlon’s past, Ms. Goroff said, referring to his work in former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s administration and with the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute.
“I worked for Rudy, as I’ve said, when he was sane,” Mr. Avlon said, and “the Manhattan Institute is now unrecognizable.” The candidates “shouldn’t try to make each other into scary people,” he added. “I don’t think talking about objective election results is negative. . . . I think that’s just reality.”
The primary election is on June 25.
