The Winner
Voters on Long Island’s south shore are sending Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) back to Washington D.C. for a second term. Gillen won New York’s 4th Congressional District with 56.1% of the vote in the latest unofficial count, according to Ballotpedia’s results for the race. Republican Jeanine Driscoll took 43.5%, leaving Gillen about 13 points ahead.
That’s a wider win than in 2024, when Gillen took the seat from Republican Anthony D’Esposito 51.1% to 48.8%. The result keeps the seat in Democratic hands.
The Race
Driscoll, the Town of Hempstead’s receiver of taxes, won the June 23 Republican primary with 90.8% of the vote and ran on both the Republican and Conservative Party lines. Libertarian Blay Tarnoff took 0.3%. Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball rated the race Likely Democratic going into Election Day, while Inside Elections rated it Tilt Democratic.
The district stretches from beach towns through the Five Towns to Hempstead and Garden City, and it borders Queens, CBS News New York has reported. About 773,000 people live there, and the typical household earns about $141,000 a year. About half of residents are white, about 22% are Hispanic, about 18% are Black and about 8% are Asian.
About 45% of adults in the district hold at least a bachelor’s degree. The unemployment rate is about 5%, and about 6% of residents live below the poverty line.
What’s Next
Gillen’s second term starts at noon on Jan. 3, 2027, the time and date set by the 20th Amendment. New York hasn’t certified its results yet, so the vote totals may still shift. At an August roundtable, Gillen said, “I hear from Long Islanders all the time that health care is too expensive,” and said she would keep working in Congress to lower costs, according to a press release from her House office.
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