(DCNF)—House Republicans’ quest to preserve their slim majority will likely be dependent on the outcomes of four New York races with GOP incumbents in previously pro-Biden districts engaged in tough reelection fights.
Democrats need to flip just four Republican-held seats to retake control of the House, and party operatives are zeroing in on a group of freshman lawmakers representing competitive New York districts as prime pick-up opportunities. Though these Republican incumbents have faced voter registration and fundraising deficits in addition to running in a presidential election year that could see increased turnout, the campaigns and GOP operatives are optimistic that all of the Republican incumbent candidates in tight races will prevail on election day, according to interviews with campaign officials and written statements given to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The incumbents — New York Republican Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams — must also overcome another challenge: President Joe Biden won the districts they represent by comfortable margins in 2020. Each candidate won by less than five points during the 2022 midterms, which saw New York Republican candidates make historic gains.
In D’Esposito’s Long Island district, Biden beat former President Donald Trump by more than 14 points in 2020, making the district the most pro-Biden seat in the country held by a Republican running for reelection.
In 2022, D’Esposito won New York’s fourth district by a four-point margin against his opponent, former Hempstead Town supervisor Laura Gillen, with the two set for a rematch in November. A Siena College poll from Oct. 13-17 showed Gillen ahead by 12 points in the contest.
D’Esposito’s campaign argued to the DCNF that the Siena College poll has “fundamental flaws” because the polling occurred during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and failed to get an accurate sample of Jewish voters, which the campaign believes overwhelmingly support him.
“In a district with a large Jewish population, the pollster interviewed people during significant Jewish holy days. In fact, a large segment of the Jewish population don’t use electronic devices at this time. If Siena’s numbers were even close to accurate, Democrats would not be spending tens of millions of dollars to defeat D’Esposito while totally neglecting a statistical dead heat (according to Siena’s data) in the adjacent district, NY-1,” Matt Capp, spokesman for the D’Esposito campaign, added.
A poll conducted between Oct. 11 and 19 by Gotham Polling & Analytics has D’Esposito up by one point, with 6% of voters undecided. Capp told the DCNF that local opposition to the influx of migrants in New York City, the recently-tabled congestion pricing program and offshore wind are keeping this district in play for Republicans.
“The New York races have the advantage in that the Democratic Party has almost destroyed the state,” New York Republican consultant Bill O’Reilly told the DCNF. “We’re feeling it in taxes, in crime, in the migrant chaos.”
“There’s a built-in inclination to go Republican this time,” O’Reilly added.
Gillen has also outraised D’Esposito by more than $700,000, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Cook Political Report designates the race as a “toss-up.”
O’Reilly pointed to Lawler as the candidate most likely to prevail among the four incumbents despite running in a district that Biden won by more than ten points in 2020 and being outraised by roughly $1.3 million by his opponent, former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones of New York, according to FEC filings. O’Reilly served as the spokesperson for Lawler’s 2022 campaign.
“He has worked that district incredibly hard. He’s a classic example of someone who’s differentiated himself,” O’Reilly told the DCNF. “He’s a bipartisan guy. He works hard, he talks to everybody. He’s in the district like he said. He’s done the work to make himself known.”
Despite the most recent independent polling showing Lawler up by just one point, O’Reilly told the DCNF that Lawler’s internal polling has the candidate up by higher margins. The Cook Political Report changed the rating from “toss-up” to “lean Republican” on Oct. 25.
O’Reilly also told the DCNF that Lawler’s condemnation of anti-Israel protests at Columbia University over the past year and support for Israel in the country’s war against Hamas is likely to pay dividends in a district that has one of the highest percentages of Jewish voters in the country.
“Jewish voters in the 17th Congressional District and across the country will have a decisive impact on how elections play out across the country,” Chris Russell, spokesman for Lawler’s campaign, told the DCNF. “Orthodox, Reform, Conservative and Hasidic voters all want a few basic things in life — safe neighborhoods, good schools and a strong economy. Republicans provide winning arguments on all of those issues, and that’s why Jewish voters will be supporting candidates like Mike Lawler this November.”
Roll Call designated Williams as the most vulnerable member of the House running for reelection due to redistricting changes that made the Republican incumbent’s central New York district more Democratic. He leads his opponent, New York state senator John Mannion, by one point in the Williams campaign’s most recent internal poll. The Cook Political Report designates the race as “lean Democrat.”
Taylor Weyneth, a Williams campaign official, told the DCNF that their focus is not on the presidential ticket but on Albany and the “disastrous policies” pushed by state Democratic lawmakers and signed into law by New York governor Kathy Hochul.
“We’re running against Albany because we’re running against a New York state senator who was there for all of these disastrous policy decisions and has to own that record,” Weyneth told the DCNF. “Our opponent — he voted to give taxpayer-funded free health care to illegal immigrants and called voters ‘ignorant’ for being concerned about the migrant crisis impacting their community.”
Weyneth also told the DCNF that the campaign is feeling optimistic due to strong early voting numbers from registered Republicans. “We’re feeling confident and onward to victory,” Weyneth added.
O’Reilly described Molinaro, the 2018 New York Republican nominee for governor who now represents the Hudson Valley, as a “fighter.” Molinaro is currently in a brutal reelection contest and trails his Democratic opponent, Josh Riley, by four points in the latest polling. Molinaro beat Riley by less than two points in 2022.
The Molinaro-Riley rematch is the most expensive House race in New York, with more than $25 million worth of political ads on track to air.
“This race is about priorities,” Molinaro told the DCNF. “I’m for securing our border and putting Upstate New Yorkers first, my opponent Josh Riley supports keeping the border open and giving taxpayer-funded perks like credit cards and hotels to illegal immigrants.”
The Cook Political Report rates Molinaro’s reelection bid as a “toss-up.”
New York House Republicans, led by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, are also trying to flip a competitive seat in the mid-Hudson Valley held by Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan.
The Republican candidate, Alison Esposito, ran as the Republican nominee for New York’s lieutenant governor in 2022. The most recent independent polling from early October shows Esposito trailing Ryan by five points. The projected outcome for the Esposito-Ryan contest is “lean-Democrat,” according to Cook Political Report.
“Alison’s message of supporting law enforcement, securing our border, creating jobs, strengthening the economy, and defending our allies is resonating across NY-18,” Ben Weiner, spokesman for the Esposito campaign, told the DCNF. “Since beginning our campaign over a year ago, we’ve heard from Hudson Valley residents across the district who are ready for change. They know Pat Ryan is on the wrong side of every issue and are ready to send a common sense leader to D.C. That’s why Alison is surging in the polls and within striking distance of Pat Ryan.
“We are confident that we have the momentum and the winning message to flip NY-18 and secure a victory on election night,” Weiner added.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
