As Long Island Goes to the Polls, Will COVID-Displaced NYC Transplants Make

Anton Riehle ‘21
November 2020

As the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed mostly liberal city dwellers to both western suburbs as well as second homes on the East End, could Suffolk County switch back to Democrats? Whether or not new voters from NYC or other urban areas will have a visible impact on the election, the results of Suffolk County’s elections are an important indicator of the consensus of the rest of the nation.

This includes both Suffolk County itself and the eastern portion of the county that Republican Lee Zeldin represents, known as New York’s 1st District (NY-1). NY-1, which includes East End towns such as Greenport, is a traditionally Republican district whose county Suffolk voted for Obama twice, went to Donald Trump in 2016, and where immigration is a hot-button issue due to large-scale immigration from Mexico and Central America. As another reflector of Trump’s popularity in this area, NY-1 representative Lee Zeldin has built his support in Washington and at home on his unwavering support for president Trump.

From the bourgeois mansions on Southampton’s gold coast to Riverhead’s trailer parks, the East End is feeling the intense heat of 2020’s political polarization. There are already dozens of reports of lawn signs being stolen, not to mention the many protests, parades and counter-protests that seem to take place throughout Long Island every weekend.

It is important to note that since New York hasn’t voted red since 1984, it will almost certainly go to Joe Biden this year. Though since Rep. Lee Zeldin is such a staunch Trump ally, perhaps voters’ opposition to Trump has made them more inclined to vote Zeldin out than in 2016 or 2018.

Zeldin’s opponent Nancy Goroff has capitalized on opposition to Trump to narrow Zeldin’s lead in the NY-1 election, zeroing in on Zeldin for supporting Trump’s Covid-19 response (which, Goroff emphasizes, did not follow guidelines from scientists). In an October 19 debate, Goroff slammed Zeldin for calling Trump’s Covid-19 response “phenomenal” despite the U.S. having the highest number of both cases and deaths in the world.

Just as Trump has done to Biden, Zeldin has accused Goroff of embracing the “radical left” in the form of both rioting as well as legislation aimed at fighting police brutality and systemic racism.

In line with Trump’s rhetoric as well, Zeldin has called Goroff a “radical”, and has warned that she will make New York more dangerous if elected due to her support for ending qualified immunity and redirecting police funding to social services.

As far as this issue goes, Zeldin and Goroff are distinctly split down party lines. Rather than appeal to supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, Zeldin has doubled down on his opposition to the movement and its goals, speaking at a pro-law enforcement “Back the Blue” rally in Nassau over the summer. “Radical Professor Nancy Goroff’s dangerous anti-police policies & rhetoric are stabbing our great cops in the back”, Zeldin tweeted on October 6. (Goroff has said that she does not support defunding the police, contrary to Zeldin’s accusations -- a stance that the Biden/Harris campaign also holds.) Accordingly, when Zeldin was seen at a “Back the Blue” rally to support law enforcement, while Goroff attended various Black Lives Matter rallies.

How each candidate appeals to long-time locals as well as recent transplants from the five boroughs will be a key decider of who wins. Especially on the East End, localism (and nativism in general) is a prevailing sentiment, as there is a stark political divide between generally more conservative “locals” and more left-wing “city people” (a.k.a. “cidiots”).

This strong sense of localism was a key cause of the 2018 midterm loss of Democrat Perry Gershon, a Manhattan real estate developer with a second home in East Hampton. Zeldin supporters derisively nicknamed Gershon “Park Avenue Perry”, cementing his image as an out-of-touch interloper from NYC. Although Gershon lost by a rather slim margin of 4.1% (roughly 11,000 votes), the “Park Avenue Perry” smear evidently resonated with enough voters.

Though Zeldin’s advantage as a local seems to have eroded now that his new opponent is a local as well. While she doesn’t have the benefit of being a native like Zeldin (who represents his hometown of Shirley), Goroff has been a Long Island resident for over 20 years since becoming a Chemistry professor (and eventual department chair) at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook. The most recent poll by GQR Research, which came out in early October and has a “B” rating from FiveThirtyEight, had Zeldin in the lead by only one percentage point. This is in contrast to a New York Times/ Siena College poll from the same time in 2018 that had Zeldin leading then-opponent Gershon by ten points.

This increase in support for Zeldin’s current opponent also raises the question of what role transplant voters from the city play. The East End in particular has received a large portion of city dwellers fleeing COVID-ravaged New York: according to Newsday, single-family home signings in the North Fork alone increased by 40% annually in 2020, and signings for homes $1 million and over tripled. This could have ramifications in Southold Town and Greenport Village elections, where Republicans hold a gradually slipping majority following the 2019 town board elections.

Since the influx of wealthy NYC families is something unique to Long Island, the results of this county’s elections could suddenly not reflect the larger nationwide results if this emerging voting bloc of NYC transplants votes in large enough numbers. Assuming that doesn’t happen, the Democrats’ route to victory in Long Island and NY-1, just as in swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, will likely hinge on changing the minds of voters who previously supported Trump and Zeldin.

Given the diversity of Suffolk and NY-1 -- which includes working class communities like Mastic, middle-class suburbs like Smithtown, some of the nation’s wealthiest zip codes like East Hampton, farming towns like Mattituck and trendy hipster enclaves like Greenport -- each candidate will need all the votes they can get. It will be decided by not just wealthy cosmopolitan transplants but immigrants, concerned suburban moms and, if polls suggest anything, increasingly hesitant Trump supporters. Though if this little spit of land could solve its issues, then maybe there is hope for the rest of the nation.