Why did the GOP pick Alison Esposito to challenge Rep. Pat Ryan?

When Alison Esposito announced last year that she would challenge Rep. Pat Ryan in the 18th Congressional District, she was almost immediately embraced by the local Republican establishment, with a gaggle of Newburgh’s GOP faithful greeting her at her campaign kickoff. The former New York City Police Department deputy inspector and unsuccessful lieutenant governor candidate might not have been the most natural choice to take on Ryan, a well-liked Democratic incumbent in a crucial Hudson Valley swing district, but no other Republican was interested in competing against her for the Republican nomination.

Esposito was initially dogged by claims that she didn’t live in the district, but she now has the enthusiastic backing of both local GOP organizations and the national party. It doesn’t hurt that former Rep. Lee Zeldin, a close ally who was her running mate during the 2022 gubernatorial race, is firmly in her corner as he assists Republicans across the nation in their attempt to hold on to the House of Representatives. Zeldin is scheduled to appear at a rally with her in Poughkeepsie later this month.

Esposito’s last foray into electoral politics, though unsuccessful, may have set her up well for this cycle. In the 18th Congressional District, she and Zeldin won 51% of the vote compared to Gov. Kathy Hochul and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado’s 48%. They did best in Orange County, Esposito’s home county and the district’s most populous, where they received 55.7% of the vote.

Dutchess County Republican Party Chair Michael McCormack said the district isn’t a slam dunk for Republicans, with three separate counties to campaign in and Democrats having 50,000 more voters on the rolls than the GOP. It was ultimately too much for former Assembly Member Colin Schmitt, who lost in a nail-biter to Ryan in 2022.

Esposito may not be the strongest candidate to take on Ryan. She has no track record beyond her campaigns, a checkered record as a member of law enforcement and spent the bulk of her life living away from the district, exemplified by her constant references to crime in New York City and national political talking points.

But Schmitt was not interested in a rematch and no other Republicans were interested in taking on Ryan, so Esposito ended up with the GOP nomination.

McCormack said he is not exactly sure why Esposito didn’t face a primary, but he did not see any dissent in her coronation. “For whatever reason, no one did come forward,” he said. “You know, there was speculation of people that could have, but when Alison Esposito came forward, no one, we thought, was better than Alison for this run.”

Part of that hesitance may be due to Ryan’s strength as an opponent. An experienced campaigner with high name recognition, Ryan grew up in Kingston, attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and spent years serving as Ulster County executive. “Pat Ryan’s name recognition is where it is, in part, because he has had more of an opportunity over the last several years to run many campaigns in this congressional district in a hyperlocal way,” political consultant Alec Lewis said. “So there’s just been a lot of paid campaign communications that have gone out that really boost his name recognition over someone who is still, in my mind, certainly nowhere close to being as known throughout that congressional district.”

There are some potential Republican candidates with high name recognition who could have challenged Ryan – such as Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus, who has held office since 2013, and Dutchess County Executive Sue Serino, who was sworn in this year and whose predecessors enjoyed long stays – but they seemed uninterested in giving up their safe seats for a risky congressional run.

Republican Assembly Member Brian Maher said the toxicity of congressional politics was enough to give some local Republicans pause. “In congressional races, people get demonized,” he said. “Pat Ryan, Alison Esposito, it doesn’t matter what party, when you run in a marginal seat, you get depicted as this awful person who’s going to try to hurt people, and that’s not true at all. And I think when you ask, ‘Why don’t more people run?’ It’s because of that. People don’t want to put their name through the mud in order to serve the public.”

Esposito, who is not currently in elected office, has comparatively little to lose by challenging Ryan. And she may have more name recognition than local Republicans due to her and Zeldin’s better than expected challenge to Hochul and Delgado. Political consultant Vince Casale said a candidate with even limited name recognition is preferable to someone who needs to introduce themselves to the bulk of the district. “In essence, she becomes that strong candidate that people kind of already know,” Casale said. “She’s already been vetted because she was on a statewide ticket and voters can feel comfortable with her and she fits the profile of what the local parties wanted as their candidate in that district.”

Esposito is currently polling slightly better than Schmitt was two years ago, trailing Ryan by 5 percentage points.

On a national level, Republicans are shelling out to help her race – though her fundraising still trails Ryan’s. The Winning for Women Action Fund, an organization dedicated to supporting female GOP candidates, spent $285,000 this fall on digital advertising for her campaign. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has also chipped in from his joint fundraising committee. Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference and a close ally of former President Donald Trump, has aided her with a joint fundraising committee since the early days of her campaign. Trump himself endorsed her in June. And weeks after she formally announced her campaign, the Trump-backed America First Policy Institute brought her and other congressional hopefuls to tour the southern border in Yuma, Arizona.

The swift embrace of Esposito came down to Republicans needing a candidate with a chance to win who wanted to run against Ryan. Esposito made that clear, to the delight of local party leaders, while also representing a national vision of the Republican Party. While some of her peers in neighboring districts have adopted a nuanced approach, styling themselves as moderates or distancing themselves from MAGA politics, Esposito is comfortable calling Black Lives Matter protesters “rioters” and villainizing local asylum-seekers. Republicans in Washington, D.C., have shown their appreciation with monetary support in her race.

Esposito has cast her decision to run as a response to the degradation of society she claims to have witnessed while working as a police officer in New York City. “I stepped away from my police force because the city, the state and the country that I loved was turned upside down and we have career politicians that are overtaxing, overregulating and infringing upon our freedoms,” she said at the end of her first debate with Ryan. “That has to be prevented.”