With Americans heading to the polls on Tuesday, four competitive races in New York are being closely watched as contests that could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives.

Republicans hold the House by a narrow 218-214 margin, with one independent and two vacant seats. New York was central to the GOP’s 2022 victory, when Republicans flipped four seats in the state, two on Long Island and two in the Hudson Valley. In 2024, Democrats took back three of them.

The most expensive of the New York contests is in the 17th District in the lower Hudson Valley, where Rep. Mike Lawler is being challenged by Democrat Cait Conley, an Army combat veteran who served as a national security adviser in the Biden administration. Ad Impact, which tracks political advertising, says more than $50 million has been spent on ads in the race, putting it second among all House races nationwide.

In the 3rd District, which takes in Nassau County’s North Shore as well as parts of Queens and Huntington, Rep. Tom Suozzi is in a rematch with former Assemblyman Mike LiPetri, whom he defeated by three points in 2024. A Trump-linked Super PAC has spent about $10 million backing LiPetri.

On Nassau’s South Shore, in the 4th District, Rep. Laura Gillen is running against Republican Jeanine Driscoll, who serves as Hempstead’s receiver of taxes.

Upstate, the 21st District in the North Country, which normally leans Republican, has become a real fight since Rep. Elise Stefanik chose not to run again. Republican Anthony Constantino, a businessman who has spent $17 million of his own fortune on the campaign, is facing Democrat Blake Gendebien, a farmer. The Conservative Party, which usually endorses the Republican candidate, left its line empty.

Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to appear with Constantino in the district on Monday.

New York Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs said he expects every Democratic incumbent to be re-elected, with a chance of two additional pickups. His Republican counterpart, Ed Cox, said the state’s races “were important in the Republicans taking the House in 2022.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)