In the era of President Donald J. Trump, time moves very, very quickly—so much so that many Long Islanders are not tracking that the 2026 midterms are now eight months away.
In November, all of the seats in the House are up. Across the state, Democrats are defending 19 seats and Republicans are defending seven. The four Long Island seats are split evenly, two and two.
Although Democrats in Albany are trying to rework the current House districts, let’s look at what we have now in Nassau and Suffolk.
In the 2024 cycle, the two red House seats were won handily, but the two blue House seats were very close, reflecting the strong GOP turnout associated with Trump’s Long Island popularity.
NY-1: Republican Rep. Nicholas J. LaLota beat Democrat John Avlon with 55 percent to the Democrat’s 45 percent.
NY-2: Republican Andrew Garbarino beat Democrat Rob Lubin with 59 percent to Lubin’s 41 percent.
NY-3: Democrat Rep. Thomas Suozzi beat Republican Michael J. LiPetri, 52 percent to 48 percent. Remember, this was the seat held by Republican George Santos before the GOP-led effort to oust him.
NY-4: Democrat Laura Gillen beat Republican Anthony D’Esposito with 51 percent to D’Esposito’s 49 percent.
Two more GOP House seats is a big deal. The current House party breakdown is 218 Republicans and 214 Democrats, with three vacancies. Republicans are defending two of the vacancies, but anything can happen. If all three go to Democrats, the breakdown becomes 218–217—meaning Speaker Michael Johnson (R.-La.) is no longer the leader of anyone; rather, he is a hostage to 217 other Republicans who have him tied up in the cellar.
It cannot be overemphasized that the House has been very tight since the 2018 midterms. In that cycle, Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R.-Wis.) left 40 House Democrats without Republican opponents, losing 42 seats—in effect torching the largest GOP House majority since 1929–1931.
In the next two cycles, Republicans made a slow climb back, winning 13 seats in 2020 and nine seats in 2022, which gave them back the majority.
Given the normal play of politics—and putting aside Democrats successfully redistricting the Empire State’s House Republican delegation into extinction—NY-3 and NY-4 are clearly winnable with the right candidates. NY-3 was a GOP hold two cycles ago, and NY-4 was a two-point loss.
Trump won Suffolk County three times and Nassau County in 2024, with a solid 51 percent to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 47 percent, after losing with 45 percent in 2020 and 44 percent in 2016.
Eight months from the midterms, the four Long Island House seats are all winnable—but in the national political climate, and with paper-thin House margins, they are extremely critical if Republicans want to support Trump and protect him from getting bogged down in endless investigations, hearings, and impeachments.