With its suburban flavor and isolation, Staten Island doesn't usually seem like the trendiest New York City borough. But this year, just about every national political trend and issue is converging in the island’s 2018 congressional race.
Health care? Under pressure from voters and the health-care industry, the district's Republican Rep. Dan Donovan bucked his party and voted against repeal.
Taxes? Analysts find that Staten Island residents — and those who live in states with high property or income taxes, like New York — are more likely to get hit with a tax hike under the new Republican tax law than residents of other states.
Immigration? Opioid crisis? The Trump resistance? Check, check and check. Even though Staten Island was the only borough where Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton for president.
Resident Roxanne Claudio said the national divide between red and blue states has also divided her Westerleigh neighborhood — especially since the 2016 election.
“It’s getting worse and worse," she said. "People can’t talk to each other anymore. People don’t want to hear.”
New York’s 11th Congressional District, which includes Staten Island and a piece of Brooklyn, is the only House seat in the city held by a Republican. The GOP has controlled the seat for all but two years since 1980. But with the district having three registered Democrats for every two Republicans, both national parties think they have a shot to win as they vie for control of the House in 2018.
Claudio has lived her whole life on Staten Island, raising two kids, working — and retiring from — a job as a legal secretary in Manhattan. She’s ready to move on. At a recent town hall hosted by Donovan, she wanted to know how the Republican tax bill, then taking shape in Congress, would affect her plans.
“I’d like to get out of New York for obvious reasons," she said, citing frustration with Mayor Bill de Blasio. "Would I have a problem attracting buyers because their mortgage interest is no longer deductible?"
Donovan told her he’s worried, too.
“The elimination of those things may result in a tax increase for many people that I represent," he said. "And that’s why I voted no.”
Claudio usually votes Republican. In fact, she wants to relocate to a more conservative state, where taxes aren’t as high.
Courtney Scott lives in the other end of the 11th Congressional district — politically — in Bay Ridge.
“I’m South Brooklyn," Scott half-joked, "so I’m gerrymandered in with these guys.”
She considers herself part of the anti-Trump resistance.
Scott is a stay-at-home mom and a political newcomer, part of a new wave of activists motivated by Trump’s victory last year. She produced a video with neighbors on Staten Island who opposed the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
Now, Scott and her neighbors are focusing on 2018 — meeting regularly, knocking on doors and reaching out to neighbors.
“It’s been interesting to sort of find allies on Staten Island because it’s a much more right-leaning location,” she said.
Several Democrats have filed to run against Donovan so far. Mike DeCillis is a former police officer and teacher. Michael DeVito is a Marine veteran and works at a non-profit. Zach Emig is a bond trader and MIT grad. Max Rose is a veteran and the candidate national Democrats are watching. Paul Sperling works in real estate and is the youngest candidate in the field. And Omar Vaid is a set designer and union advocate.
Scott said Trump’s election has pushed Democrats further to the left — they’re talking about universal health care now, for instance. But she knows it’s an uphill battle in the district.
“Something that is very relevant to me — and this is often a flashpoint within left-leaning groups — that is electability," Scott said. "Who’s going to present the face that Staten Island will accept?”
But former Staten Island borough president James Molinaro said Democrats are wasting their time chasing a Republican district. He argued the real contest is between Republicans.
”I think the election is the primary,” Molinaro said.
That’s another feature of national politics that’s playing out in the district — an internal party divide between Donovan and his Republican challenger, who is supported by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Michael Grimm held the seat until 2015, when he stepped down to serve eight months in prison on a federal tax charge. Now, he’s running again.
“We will support the hard-working men and women that make this country great. And I will never stop supporting you,” Grimm said in announcing his bid, an echo of Trump's Inauguration Day promise that he will "never, ever, let you down."
Bannon is backing challengers to Republican incumbents across the country. But Molinaro said outside support amounts to “beans.”
"They would get lost on any corner of the district," Molinaro said. "They think they know. They don’t know.”
Molinaro said he thinks the primary will depend on who can raise the most money. Donovan has the edge there, with half a million dollars on hand, more than 15 times as much as Grimm. Grimm will file his first full fundraising report next month.
But Molinaro has heard lots of support for Grimm despite the former representative’s tax evasion charges for under-reporting income and wages at his Manhattan restaurant.
“I’m really surprised," Molinaro said. "The man served time in jail, right? You have to realize that people think what he served time in jail for was bullshit really. It’s done every place in the country."
Donovan said he isn’t worried about all the people trying to take his job. Polls show that the Republican health care and tax plans are unpopular, and Donovan voted against both of them.
“Anybody who votes for something because of how it’s going to affect their next election, rather than what’s good for the people who sent them here," Donovan said, "ought to go home anyhow.”
Aside from that, he’s voted with Trump 81 percent of the time according to FiveThirtyEight's Trump Tracker. But he was peppered with questions about those bills at his recent town hall.
“It seems you are in agreement that lowering corporate taxes will lead to a boost in the economy?” one man asked
“I’m also concerned about the increase in the deficit by billions of dollars that’s going to take away money from Medicare and Medicaid," another person said.
“This is not a fair tax bill,” a third added.
Donovan sometimes agreed with those concerns — like preserving the ability to deduct student loan debt. Other times he explained why Republicans couldn't, or wouldn't, do what the constituent was asking. Ultimately, he said the bill hurt his constitents more than helped, and that's why he was voting against it.
Which brings us back to Roxanne Claudio, who asked Donovan about selling her Staten Island home.
“When I bought it 15 years ago it was...in the mid three hundreds," she said, worried tax changes could affect her ability to sell her home for the highest possible price. "I’m hoping to get a lot more.”
Claudio thinks she’ll end up with a tax hike under the GOP bill. But she said she’ll blame local government — not Donovan or Republicans.
“I think that somebody’s got to stop spending money," she said. "I mean, the city and the state of New York is out of control.”