Nineteen months before the 2020 elections, one U.S. House race that now appears in play is New York’s 11th District (Staten Island-Brooklyn).
By nearly all accounts, Nicole Malliotakis, state assemblywoman and 2017 candidate for mayor of New York, is poised to carry the Republican and Conservative Party lines against freshman Democratic Rep. Max Rose.
In recent weeks, Malliotakis, 38, has raised eyebrows in political circles nationwide by raising more than $300,000 in the first quarter of the year—the most of any Republican non-incumbent U.S. House hopeful in the nation.
In addition, the announced House hopeful has received the maximum legal donation from House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, Cal., and early endorsements from New York Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik and Lee Zeldin and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Wash.
In a state where the third ballot line of the smaller Conservative Party has long been critical to the election of nearly all Republicans from the Empire State, its recently-elected Conservative Chairman Jerry Kassar told us Malliotakis “was a near certainty” to have the Conservative nomination for Congress in ’20.
“There’s just too much I addressed and wanted to change when I ran for mayor that an activist Member of Congress could do something about,” the feisty daughter of Cuban and Greek immigrants told Newsmax, “Sanctuary cities, the tax dollars that the [New York Democratic Mayor Bill] DeBlasio Administration has misused intended for public education and transportation, —they can be scrutinized at the federal level.”
But Malliotakis emphasized that “one can only have reform when there is a two-party system. Here in New York, we’ve seen what one-party rule can do and it’s not good. Right now, we have no Members of Congress from New York who aren’t Democrats. That has to change.”
Two years ago, the one-party rule Malliotakis spoke of came about when political newcomer Rose upset the 11th District’s Rep. Dan Donovan—the last Republican U.S. Representative from New York City. Prior to Rose’s election, the 11th had been in Republican hands for all but two of the previous 38 years.
“And while he plays middle-of-the-road back in the district, he is far on the left in Washington and on MSNBC,” observed the Malliotakis, “He supports DeBlasio’s sanctuary city policy, backs free college for illegal aliens, favors late-term abortion and lowering the voting age to sixteen.”
Malliotakis, whose Assembly district is contained within the boundaries of the 11th District, carried 70 percent of the vote in Staten Island when she ran for mayor. In the Brooklyn portion of the district, her margin was 58 percent.
“And one thing I can’t wait to do when I’m in Congress is take on [New York’s far-left Democratic Rep.] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—on the House floor and on TV,” she told us, “My Mom was a refugee from Castro’s Cuba, and anyone who wants to take us down the road to socialism is on my bad side.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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