U.S. Representative Nick LaLota and challenger Chris Gallant.
Digital Editor
U.S. Representative Nick LaLota and challenger Chris Gallant.
Two-term Republican U.S. Representative Nick LaLota is working to fend off a challenge from newcomer Democrat Chris Gallant in the race for New York’s 1st Congressional District seat.
Neither LaLota nor Gallant currently lives in the 1st District — both live in the 2nd District — but Gallant has pledged to move to the district. The candidates never met for a debate this election season after Gallant refused all invitations to debate, including from Newsday, News 12 and The Express News Group. Gallant has attended a number of bipartisan “Meet the Candidates” forums hosted by civic groups — events that LaLota was also invited to but did not attend.
LaLota, 48, of Amityville, is an 11-year U.S. Navy veteran and a former Amityville Village trustee. He served as a Republican commissioner at the Suffolk County Board of Elections and was chief of staff to the Republican majority in the Suffolk County Legislature prior to joining Congress.
When he was first elected in 2022, LaLota succeeded fellow Republican Lee Zeldin by besting Democrat Bridget Fleming at the polls, 55.5 percent to 44.5 percent. Then in 2024, LaLota won 55.2 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic challenger John Avlon.
LaLota serves on the House Appropriations Committee and the House Committee on Homeland Security. He’s a member of several subcommittees, including serving as vice chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.
LaLota proudly boasts as a hallmark achievement that he ensured the cap on the State and Local Tax deduction, known as SALT, was raised under the 2025 tax and spending bill championed by President Donald Trump, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The SALT deduction had been unlimited until the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was adopted during the first Trump administration, capped it at $10,000. LaLota and other Long Island congressmen fought for the cap to be raised, and ultimately it was quadrupled to $40,000 with 1 percent annual increases through 2029, after which it will revert to $10,000.
He also touts support for a congressional stock trading ban and says he sold every individual stock he owned prior to taking office; he points to his record of bringing federal dollars to the district in excess of $41.3 million to support projects and purchases such as Sag Harbor and Southampton sewers, Westhampton water mains, and new police vehicles and equipment upgrades for East Hampton Town, Southampton Town, Sag Harbor Village and Quogue Village.
LaLota has also butted heads with East End municipalities: He told East Hampton Village and East Hampton Town he would not secure any more earmarks for them until they repeal local laws they adopted, proposed by OLA of Eastern Long Island, that curtail local police cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. LaLota calls the local legislation “Hochul-Mamdani-style sanctuary laws.”
Among his other legislative efforts this session are introducing the bipartisan No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act and authoring the bipartisan DETECT Fentanyl and Xylazine Act.
LaLota has cast the election as a choice between “commonsense” and “crazy.”
Gallant, 37, of Amity Harbor, is a U.S. Army National Guard Black Hawk helicopter pilot, a volunteer firefighter and a former air traffic controller and union leader. This is his first run for office.
Gallant earned the Democratic nomination for Congress in a decisive primary victory over Lukas Ventouras in June, winning 62.9 percent to 37 percent.
His platform calls for lowering the cost of living on Long Island, preparing the island for the future, protecting federal entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — and the Affordable Care Act, supporting veterans and military families as well as labor and working families, and restoring trust in government.
On the cost of living and affordability front, Gallant advocates raising the SALT deduction cap permanently, stopping price gouging on groceries and gasoline, and expanding child tax credits. He promotes federal grants for starter homes and workforce housing. On healthcare, he calls for preserving coverage for preexisting conditions, strengthening community health centers, reducing surprise medical bills, lowering prescription drug prices, expanding mental health care and substance abuse treatment, and expanding coverage for dental, hearing and vision.
He opposes the unilateral implementation of tariffs by the president, and he opposes local law enforcement doing the work of federal immigration enforcement. He calls for more stringent training for ICE agents to match the training of local police, banning the use of masks by agents and holding agents accountable when they break the law.
Gallant pledges to hold monthly in-person town hall meetings across the district where constituents can put questions to him directly.
Gallant’s campaign was rocked in September when the New York Post and Messenger Papers published unearthed explicit bondage photos depicting Gallant engaged in sex acts. But Gallant shrugged off the revelation, calling it a “coordinated political hit” designed to drive him out of the race.
Gallant has said he intends to move into the district with his fiancé, likely somewhere in St. James or East Northport to be closer to his father, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. His fiancé — they met while both serving in Kuwait — is currently on active duty in the Middle East.
Digital Editor
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