Rematch in the Catskills

By Dr. Julie Martinez Ortega

Grab your paddle and hop in a canoe because this week we’re featuring some of the most beautiful parts of New York State at this time of the year — the Catskills, Hudson Valley, and Finger Lakes regions that are home to some of the best paddling east of the Mississippi River. Democrat Josh Riley is challenging the freshman Republican incumbent, Marc Molinaro, in a rematch of 2022 to represent the people who call this mainly rural part of the Empire State home.

Highly competitive seat — NY-19

The NY-19 is one of 18 congressional districts that would have voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election had they existed in their current configuration while being won or held by a Republican in 2022. This is considered a highly competitive seat and the Cook Political Report has the race categorized as a Republican Toss Up while we give it a score of D+1 on the New Majority Index. 

The district is overwhelmingly white, with only 10% of its citizen adults being people of color. The socioeconomic status of the district is markedly lower than that of NY-01, which we featured earlier this month. The median income of NY-19 is only $67,645 compared to NY-01’s $126,171. 

Riley vs Molinaro

Born and raised in a working-class family that’s lived in Upstate New York for over a century, Josh Riley has spent his career in public service, racking up an impressive list of policy accomplishments aimed at improving the lives of working families. 

Republican Molinaro’s claim to fame is that he was the youngest mayor in the United States at the age of 19 when he was elected mayor of Tivoli, NY in 1995. He’s remained in various public service roles since then as a Republican elected or appointed official. In his brief time in Congress, Molinaro has refrained from taking extremist views, which is not surprising given the partisan bent of the district. He’s been supportive of same sex marriage and was an outspoken critic of George Santos. 

Describing the race as already becoming “bitter,” in May 2024 local media outlet NY1.com wrote: “In recent interviews, Molinaro labeled Riley a ‘fraud,’ while Riley said Molinaro is ‘really good at pointing fingers’ and ‘really bad at solving problems.’ Molinaro joined with fellow Republicans who acquiesced to former President Trump’s command to quash the bipartisan immigration reform bill painstakingly negotiated by some of the most hardline Republicans in office. Riley has done his best to call attention to Molinaro’s decision to choose partisanship over the smart policy solution.”

In the 2022 election, Molinaro won with 49.9% of the vote. The district lines for 2024 will differ slightly from those under which Molinaro prevailed by about 5,000 votes, and will favor Republicans ever so slightly more than the previous map.  

Tight race

A quick glance at the election outcomes and turnout numbers over the past few cycles suggests that this is indeed a very tight race going into November. With almost equal turnout in the midterm cycles of 2018 and 2022, we saw both parties emerge victorious. But it’s noteworthy that in 2018, the Dem managed to achieve a margin of victory of over 15,000 votes despite the third-party candidates pulling a significant share (7,000+) of the votes. The last presidential cycle (2020) saw an even larger share of votes in the column of third-party candidates, but the overall turnout number was almost 70,000 higher than in either the prior or subsequent midterm, and we see that the Democrat prevailed among those additional voters with a decisive margin of victory over the Republican of approximately 38,000 votes.