Hundreds of miles from New York City, Republicans desperate to protect a House seat in Central New York aired television ads vilifying Mayor Eric Adams, splicing in images of migrants sleeping on city sidewalks.
In the Hudson Valley, a Republican congressman homed in on New York City during a debate this month, highlighting crimes committed by migrants in Manhattan. And on Long Island, a Democratic hopeful struck a similar note, vowing to secure the southern border because the spillover from New York City had the suburbs “feeling the migrant crisis almost every day.”
Few cities have borne the burden of the migrant crisis like New York, which has received more than 210,000 asylum seekers over the past two years. But the political fallout of the crisis has spilled into competitive House races across the state. Republicans have used New York City to illustrate the disorder that they say has been wrought by Democratic immigration policies, with Democrats responding by adopting a tougher approach to border security.
The city’s migrant crisis has also come up in the presidential race. Former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, claimed at a rally this month that migrant criminals had “taken over Times Square,” exaggerating recent reporting by The New York Post about migrant gang activity in Manhattan.
In doing so, Mr. Trump typified his party’s strategy of intertwining the migrant influx with two other pressing issues for voters: crime and high living costs.
That tactic has been frequently deployed by Republicans in contested House races in New York that could help decide control of Congress, with New York City a frequent target in debates, stump speeches and attack ads.
Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican locked in a tight race for re-election, said that the arrival of migrants had placed a noticeable strain on his Hudson Valley district, just north of the city, including on schools, food pantries and the housing market.
“It’s a major issue and people recognize it,” Mr. Lawler said in an interview. “Even if the number has come down, both in terms of crossings and in terms of those being housed in a shelter in New York City, the fact still remains that it is costing taxpayers billions of dollars.”
Even a statewide ballot question meant to codify the right to an abortion in the State Constitution has been seen through the lens of the migrant crisis, with Republican opponents arguing that it would open the door for special rights and services for undocumented immigrants.
Fears among New York Democrats that the migrant crisis could hurt them in November date to last year, when public polling at the height of the influx showed that voters disapproved of how President Biden, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mr. Adams — all Democrats — were handling the crisis.
Democrats managed to contain some of the fallout. Mr. Adams largely abandoned plans to bus migrants to upstate communities after a fierce backlash, but New Yorkers still remain apprehensive about the influx, even as doom-and-gloom headlines have diminished.
Republicans frequently cite the taxpayer-funded services that migrants have received in New York City — including free shelter at hotels and debit cards for a group of migrant families to pay for food — as examples of what they say is wasteful spending at the expense of Americans.
Republicans, who have long leaned on a perception of chaos in New York City as a tool to mobilize suburban and upstate voters, are bullish that the migrant crisis still resonates, even as the number of people crossing the southern border has fallen and the situation in the city has shown signs of stabilizing.
Indeed, a Siena College poll from July found that 83 percent of voters statewide, including a high share of Democrats, believed that the migrant influx was “very serious” or “somewhat serious.” In August, 64 percent of New Yorkers said they believed the influx had gotten worse over the last year, with a higher share of suburban voters seeing the situation as more dire.
Democrats in contested House races have taken notice. Deviating sharply from how the party once spoke about immigration policy, they now urgently and proactively cast themselves as intent on securing the border. And they have sought to deflect blame onto Republicans for their role in torpedoing a border deal in Congress.
That approach helped Representative Tom Suozzi, a moderate Democrat, win a special election on Long Island in February, creating a playbook that other Democrats in the state are mimicking ahead of November.
Even Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat who is expected to comfortably win re-election and who once favored disbanding the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, spent more than $1 million to air an ad touting her support of funding for more border patrol agents.
Alyssa Cass, a Democratic political consultant, said that Democrats in close races who had “rebranded” enough to assuage voters skeptical about their party’s border policies would be able to focus on other issues important to swing voters.
“When it comes to the border, Democrats have evolved this cycle to really meet voters where they are,” she said. “It’s not that they need to win on the issue. If the border is a top issue, they just need to close the trust gap.”
On Long Island, Laura Gillen, a Democrat hoping to unseat Representative Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican, has crystallized the ways in which Democrats are trying to flip the script on Republicans.
Her campaign spent more than $600,000 on a 30-second ad that featured her standing on the border separating Nassau County and New York City, vowing to “secure our southern border, lock up criminals pushing fentanyl and stop the migrant crisis.” In an interview, she said that immigration was “an issue that people in my district really care about,” adding that Mr. D’Esposito had “failed to deliver any kind of relief to New York State, or to address the crisis.”
Matt Capp, a spokesman for Mr. D’Esposito, said in a statement that “voters across Long Island are fed up with the Biden-Harris administration’s failed record on border security.” He also blamed the state’s sanctuary-city policies for the crisis.
Republicans note that border crossings reached record highs under President Biden. And they point out that the failed border bill, which would have effectively shut down the border to migrants when numbers reached unmanageable levels, was opposed by a handful of Democrats, too.
“With regards to them all of a sudden hearing about the border,” said Savannah Viar, a deputy communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, “I think it’s laughable.”
Taken together, about one-fifth of the nearly $57 million that both Republicans and Democrats have spent on hundreds of televisions ads in New York congressional races this cycle have touched on immigration, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks ad spending.
In one ad playing in the Hudson Valley, Representative Marc Molinaro, a Republican, accused his Democratic challenger, Josh Riley, of wanting to give “free stuff” to migrants who entered the country illegally.
And in a neighboring district, Representative Pat Ryan, a first-term Democrat, is trying to hold on to his seat by portraying himself as the law-and-order candidate against Alison Esposito, a former police commander, saying in one ad that he was “restoring order in our southern border.”
The migrant crisis may play an even larger role in down-ballot elections for the State Legislature, which Democrats control. Republicans have unleashed a barrage of ads against Democrats who voted for a budget this year that included $2.4 billion in state money to pay for shelter costs, legal services and health care for migrants.
A Republican running for a State Senate seat north of Syracuse aired an ad claiming that the billions spent on migrants could have covered the salaries of thousands of police officers and replaced damaged roads in Oswego and Onondaga Counties. In Saratoga, a Republican state senator televised an ad criticizing the prepaid credit cards given to migrants in the city, saying the money could have gone to support veterans.
“You’re seeing these campaigns talking about the top issues, crime and affordability, through the lens of immigration,” said Chapin Fay, a Republican political consultant. “Immigration has taken over as the overarching theme.”
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