The battle for the House of Representatives is raging in districts around NYC where Trump has struggled but other Republicans have thrived

NELSONVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Voters in a ring of congressional districts around New York City where Republican candidates often do well, but Donald Trump The contested party in 2020 could determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives for the next two years.

Eleven districts within 90 miles of Manhattan are expected to be among the most hotly contested House elections in the country on election day.

Republicans now hold a narrow 6-5 lead in the nearly contiguous county that begins in the Long Island suburbs, cuts through western Connecticut and New York's Hudson River Valley and Catskills regions, then through eastern Pennsylvania meanders before winding back into New Jersey.

Both parties have a chance to win seats in the vast area of ​​dense suburbs, leafy suburbs and former mill towns. Democrats have made the region an important part of their strategy to regain a majority in the House of Representativesbut voters in the districts were far from uniform in their thinking in the last election.

They agreed on two things: Most were open to Republican candidates, but also showed an antipathy toward Trump. That means it could be crucial for the former president to lead the Republican race this year unless opposition to him subsides or voters in the region are willing to split their votes.

Trump lost to the Democrat Joe Biden in all but two of the 11 districts in 2020. Two years later, voters in seven of them sent Republicans to Congress. In three of those districts where Republicans won in 2022, and in two others where Democrats won by razor-thin margins, Trump lost to Biden by at least 10 percentage points, according to voting data tabulated by The Associated Press.

It's not clear whether the political dynamics that helped Republicans fare well outside New York City in the 2022 midterm elections still exist today. This election, many suburban voters were concerned about a rise in violent crime following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, crime rates have fallen since then.

“The news environment in 2022 made the battlegrounds very steep for Democrats,” said former U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, a Long Island Democrat who was once chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

But in a presidential election year in which Trump is waging a bitter campaign against the vice president Kamala Harris“The messaging environment is defined by the top of the ticket,” Israel said. “In these districts, it tends to turn into a referendum on Donald.”

The ability of Republican candidates to outperform Trump two years ago was illustrated in New York's 17th Congressional District, a suburb north of the city that is home to the village of Sleepy Hollow, Sing Sing Prison and the likes of Bill and Hillary Clinton Billionaire George Soros.

Trump owns a golf club and private property in the district, but still lost to Biden there by 10 percentage points. In 2022, Republican Mike Lawler narrowly defeated U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat who had been in office for a decade.

Now Lawler is waging a tough campaign against Mondaire Jones, a former Democratic congressman who was one of the first two openly gay black men in the House of Representatives when he was elected in 2020. Jones lost his seat when his electoral district's boundaries were redrawn.

Both candidates have focused their strategies on winning over moderate voters, but criticize each other as allies of the radicals.

“People are waking up to the fact that even if they don't believe Mike Lawler is as bad as Marjorie Taylor Greene, they can't afford to vote for him because he promotes the chaos and extremism that we down in Washington,” Jones told The Associated Press, referring to the far-right congresswoman from Georgia.

Democrats also claimed Lawler wanted to ban abortion, which the Republican denies. Lawler said Democrats are trying to mislead voters on an issue that has proven a winner for many Democrats since the Supreme Court struck down constitutional protections for abortion rights in 2022.

“It shows they have nothing else to talk about or talk about, from the economy to the border to the international crises around the globe,” Lawler told the AP.

Lawler's approach has worked for voters like Michelle Patterson, 71, who lives in a small house in the village of Nelsonville decorated with Trump flags and Republican lawn signs.

She described Lawler as a “common sense” and Jones as a “radical” and said Democrats were trying to distract voters with their warnings about abortion access.

“He's not advocating a ban on abortion!” she said of Lawler.

It's a harder sell for other voters.

“I don't believe him,” said Jill Ferson, 77, a social worker who lives in the village of Croton-on-Hudson, when asked about Lawler's statement that he would not support a federal abortion ban.

Ferson said her biggest concerns in this election are keeping Trump out of office and protecting abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Similar dynamics can also be seen in the other ring districts.

On Long Island, Republican Rep. Anthony D'Esposito is trying to retain a congressional district just outside New York City that Biden won by 15 percentage points. D'Esposito is trying to portray Democrat Laura Gillen as soft on crime while simultaneously criticizing Democrats over immigration policies that he blames for the influx of migrants.

Gillen, a former city manager, has rejected that criticism and said she would advocate for greater law enforcement and border security if elected.

Northwest of the city, Democrat Josh Riley is trying to unseat U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro, a Republican, in a rematch of their close 2022 contest. The district stretches from the Hudson River Valley to the Finger Lakes.

In some New York counties, Democrats could face questions about the charges against the New York mayor Eric Adamswho has pleaded not guilty to charges of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions. But Adams isn't on the ballot, so that may not matter to voters. While some Republicans used the scandal to claim there was rampant corruption in the Democratic Party, Trump spoke favorably of Adams and portrayed his prosecution as politically motivated.

In eastern Pennsylvania, a presidential battleground, three constantly contested congressional districts have incumbents with a knack for survival. They include Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who is seeking a fifth term in a district that favored Biden by five percentage points in 2020. His opponent is Ashley Ehasz, a former Army helicopter pilot whom he defeated by nearly 10 percentage points two years ago.

New Jersey and Connecticut also each have at least one competitive race.

In a New Jersey district that includes Trump's Bedminster golf club, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is seeking a second term against Democrat Sue Altman, a former chairwoman of the state's progressive Working Families Alliance.

In Connecticut, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes will again face former Republican state Sen. George Logan, whom she defeated by less than 1 percent two years ago in a district Biden won by 11 percentage points.

At a recent debate, Hayes accused Logan of hiding his support for Trump. Logan denied this but did not mention Trump's name once.