John Avlon, who quickly rose to the top in a field of Democratic congressional contenders that numbered half a dozen just a few months ago, bested Nancy Goroff in an overwhelming victory in Tuesday’s primary in New York’s First Congressional District. When the votes were counted, Mr. Avlon had received more than 70 percent of the total, roughly 19,000, to 8,000, with about 95 percent of the vote reported.
He will now face first-term Republican Representative Nick LaLota in the November election. In a statement Wednesday morning, Mr. Avlon challenged him to a series of six debates starting in July.
“The voters in New York’s First Congressional District deserve a series of real debates on the issues that affect their lives. They deserve to judge the solutions we put forward and see the difference between Nick LaLota’s extreme MAGA approach to politics and my belief we can come together and find common-sense solutions to our most pressing problems,” he said.
“As a Manhattan resident unfamiliar with Suffolk County’s election history, John Avlon wants summer debates either because he must be heading back to Manhattan by the fall — as he usually does — or because he knows he’s down by double digits in the polls and has some major ground to make up,” Mr. LaLota said in a statement. “Either way, we’ll agree to a series of debates in line with the timing and format typical of NY-01’s elections.”
Mr. LaLota’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for verification of that polling data.
At a primary night party in Riverhead, only 45 minutes after polls closed at 9, Mr. Avlon was heard saying, “The Times is calling it.” His eyes welled as he hugged his wife, Margaret Hoover, and the room at the Riverhead Brew House filled with shouts and strong applause. Minutes later, News 12 also called the race, and cameras directed at a lectern switched on. Suddenly, the room itself was seen on several televisions above the bar, even louder applause erupted, and the mood, already elevated, brightened with the lights.
East Hampton Democrats were pleased. In a statement, Anna Skrenta, chairwoman of the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee, said the group was “proud to have been one of the first to endorse John’s candidacy. . . . We are confident that the broad coalition that John built in this primary will quickly expand in the coming months to include independents and anti-MAGA Republicans who will join together to defeat Nick LaLota and play an instrumental role in flipping the House in November.”
“It’s been a beautiful day in Suffolk County,” Mr. Avlon told those gathered in Riverhead. “We proved that the positive defeats the negative. . . . We showed that the politics of addition can defeat the politics of division, and that’s going to be the key to winning in November.”
Mr. Avlon, as he has done often, characterized the district as up for grabs and crucial if Democrats hope to regain control of the House.
“We in Suffolk County are lucky to live in a swing district. Most Americans don’t. . . . That’s what’s led to this poisonous hyper-partisanship that frustrates so many of us. But here we can do something about it. We can be the change we want to see.”
The district, which runs north of the Long Island Expressway from Huntington to Orient Point and dips south somewhat west of Riverhead to include the entire South Fork, of late has roughly equal numbers of active registered Democrats (about 184,000) and Republicans (181,000). In his speech, Mr. Avlon noted that the district is also home to the state’s highest population of registered independents.
According to a survey conducted by Politico and Ipsos, 21 percent of independents said the recent conviction of former President Trump in a Manhattan hush money trial made them less likely to support him, which could prove problematic for Mr. LaLota as he courts their vote. Democrats are hoping Mr. Avlon can inspire the base and win the majority of independents, turning the district blue for the first time since November 2014, when Representative Tim Bishop lost his seat to then-New York State Senator Lee Zeldin.
In his 10-minute victory speech, Mr. Avlon gave examples of how he would take on Mr. LaLota, who was elected to Congress in 2022, when he defeated Bridget Fleming, a Suffolk County legislator at the time, after Mr. Zeldin vacated his seat to run for governor. He said he would bring back the state and local tax deduction, fight for women’s reproductive rights, and, importantly, play offense on issues recently associated with Republicans: immigration and supporting the police.
“These folks literally voted to defund the police, trying to cut the F.B.I. by more than $400 million,” he said. “They cut the cops program, which supports local law enforcement. We’re not going to let them pretend to be the party that takes immigration reform seriously, either. Because when the Senate delivered the toughest bipartisan immigration reform security bill anyone had ever seen, Trump pulled the plug and Nick LaLota took the knee.”
He also spoke of one of the “defining moments of his life,” writing eulogies for those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “Those brave men and women did not die nearly a quarter of a century ago to see our nation tear itself apart now. Our generation is called on to overcome extremism and division and to prove once again the fundamental strength and character of American democracy.”
By 10:30, Mr. Avlon was on the outside deck of the restaurant, taking a congratulatory call from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Mr. Avlon, who lives in Sag Harbor, is a former CNN anchor and analyst. He served as editor in chief and managing director of The Daily Beast from 2013 to 2018 and was a chief speechwriter for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a role that Ms. Goroff’s supporters seized upon in a series of attack ads. Mr. Avlon said she ran a “hard-fought race.”
In a release conceding the race Tuesday night, Ms. Goroff, a retired Stony Brook University chemistry professor, called it “imperative that all Democrats now come together to defeat Nick LaLota and flip this seat in November. John has built a broad coalition of elected officials, community leaders, and unions. He will be a common-sense voice for the people of Suffolk in Washington and a vast improvement over LaLota, who has proven to be far too extreme for this district.”
In his own statement, Mr. LaLota said that “our common-sense conservative campaign feels confident about our race against CNN commentator and Manhattan elitist John Avlon. We start the general election campaign on the right side of the issues that matter most, especially the border and economy. After redistricting, this is a district that President Trump won by 1.8 points in 2020 and 9.8 points in 2016. Avlon has taken extremist leftist positions on CNN and as a N.Y.C. resident who takes a tax break only N.Y.C. residents can take, he doesn’t understand Suffolk County.”
