Top Republicans believe that former President Donald Trump is fueling high turnout in down-ballot New York House races, sources familiar exclusively told Breitbart News.
Battleground races in New York could decide the balance of power in the House. In 2022, New York Republican victories enabled the GOP to clench control of the chamber. If Republicans defeat Democrats in 2024 and retain their seats, the party will have a strong chance of retaining a House majority.All GOP-targeted districts have so far outperformed their historical 2022 turnout margins by as much as 50 percent, sources familiar with early vote data told Breitbart News. The districts reaching the 50 percent threshold are 4, 17, 18, and 19.Sources tell Breitbart News the positive turnout is driven by support for former President Donald Trump and House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) ground game operation.
Stefanik has now spent nearly $3 million dollars on early vote efforts between her House GOP battleground fund, the NRCC, and NYGOP, per one source familiar with the effort.
Stefanik’s ground game during the 2022 midterms is widely credited for handing Republicans control of the House and preventing the Biden-Harris administration from passing more legislation to fuel inflation and enact amnesty measures.
“For the first time, New York is possibly in play for the presidential race and will certainly determine the House Majority,” Stefanik told Breitbart News:
Republicans across New York and the country are voting early in historic numbers, but we must not get complacent and must keep up the momentum and continue working to turn voters out. I’m calling on all Republicans to ensure their family, friends, and neighbors get out to vote early in person or on Election Day.”
Alex DeGrasse, executive director of Team Elise who oversees the early vote program told Breitbart News that House Democrats are in deep trouble.
“NY Democrats led by Kathy Hochul are in total free fall. No amount of spin can hide that. NY Republicans are turning out in record numbers for Early In-Person voting, vastly outperforming our 2022 margins in every seat, some by 50 percent,” he said:
The Democrat Vote-By-Mail ‘firewall’ is the lowest it’s ever been as we see Democrats failing to return their ballots. Long Island looks great, as does the Hudson Valley and Upstate,” he said. “Lastly, Democrats should be panicking about NY-03, where Republicans are running near even with Democrats in Early In-Person Voting because it’s clearly TRUMP COUNTRY.”
Republicans must spend the weekend, now dubbed the weekend of mass mobilization, getting themselves and every like minded patriot they know out to vote early in person. The early polling locations close tomorrow, if we continue to run up our score in early voting we are in a position to bring it home in all 5 defense seats and our two offensive targets. A Year ago no one in the mainstream media thought we would be here, but here we are, It’s not over and we must continue the momentum through Election Day to protect our House Majority which will be decided right here in New York.
Below is early vote data through day six of early voting (October, 31), per the New York State Board of Elections.
Early Vote Data by District (Republican/Democrat Margin Toplines):
- District 1 – Rep. Nicholas LaLota (R): + 9.24%
- District 3 – Michael LiPetri (R): + 3.04%
- District 4 – Anthony D’Esposito (R): + 1.85%
- District 17 – Mike Lawler (R): + 8.42%
- District 18 – Alison Esposito: + 8.73%
- District 19 – Marc Molinaro (R): + 16.35%
- District 21 – Stefanik (R): + 13.22%
- District 22 – Brandon Williams (R): + 2.78%
Change in Republican/Democrat Margin from 2022 to 2024:
- District 1 – LaLota: + 12.39 points
- District 3 – LiPetri: + 8.74 points
- District 4 – D’Esposito: + 2.37 points
- District 17 – Lawler: + 11.16 points
- District 18 – Esposito: + 17.29 points
- District 19 – Molinaro: + 17.49 points
- District 21 – Stefanik: + 14.66 points
- District 22 – Williams: + 14.92 points
The positive numbers for Republicans appear to be upsetting Democrats and their media allies. Politico’s New York Playbook warned Democrats on Saturday about the “good” numbers for Republicans:
New York Democrats are trying to project calm, saying they had expected these Republican voters to cast their ballot anyway — it’s just that a surprising number are doing it via early voting.
…
In the seven Democrat-designated battleground districts, just 41 percent of early voters are registered Democrats. Another 34 percent are Republicans and 20 percent are unaffiliated, according to state Dems.
In the state where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one and Biden handily won almost every battleground congressional district, that split looks good for Republicans.
Trump believes New York State House races could determine the balance of power in the House, the former president said on a tele-rally last weekend with Stefanik. The tele-rally, lead by Stefanik, dialed out to nearly one million Trump supporters to push early voting, a source familiar with Stefanik’s effort told Breitbart News.
“We are doing very well upstate. We’re doing very well in Long Island and certain parts over there, like literally at 90 and 95 percent and Upstate is the same thing, and we should be doing the best of all in Manhattan,” Trump said, “[where] the people are living on the streets. I’ve never seen vacant stores on Madison Avenue. And the other day I went by and like almost it seemed that 50 percent of the stores are vacant. I’ve never seen a vacant store on Madison or Fifth Avenue, and you look now, it’s all vacant.”
“We want to get everybody out [to vote] because we think we could actually win New York,” Trump told supporters on the call. “We’re leading, as you know, in all the swing states, and I think we’re leading potentially very big. We set a record in early voting, and a lot of them were voters that don’t vote that much, which is pretty amazing.”
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
