Meet the candidates for NY’s Second Congressional District

Incumbent U.S. Rep Andrew Garbarino is facing a challenge from former Suffolk County executive and Democrat Pat Halpin in this November’s election. The second congressional district covers South Shore communities from Massapequa to Mastic.

Incumbent Republican Andrew Garbarino

Andrew Garbarino is seeking a fourth term as the South Shore’s representative in the U.S. House of Representatives, and describes himself as a “results-oriented” legislator who focuses on working with different sides to compromise on bills.

Before entering Congress, Garbarino worked as an attorney at his father’s law office in downtown Sayville, and won his first election as state assemblymember in 2012. In late 2019, former U.S. Rep. Peter King announced he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2020, and Garbarino said he never thought he’d run for the seat, until people across the district encouraged him to run. He won that election, and defeated primary challengers two years later, before winning a third term in 2024.

Garbarino said he often works behind the scenes and talks with relevant parties to get legislation done rather than showing off for the media and online, like other colleagues do.
“I’m more results-oriented than how many Twitter likes and followers I have,” Garbarino said. “If I have to do a press conference, it’s announcing the result, the thing that we got done. That’s what I want to do.”

Garbarino said he’s proud of his work in helping secure an increase in the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction from $10,000 to $40,000 along with preserving the Pass-Through Entity Tax (PTET) deduction, which Long Islanders and local businesses can utilize.

“That increased SALT benefit didn’t just affect my district; it affected people all over the country, and it put dollars, their hard-earned dollars, back in their pockets because getting rid of the SALT deduction pretty much meant people were paying taxes on their taxes,” Garbarino said.

The raised SALT deduction was part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Garbarino said he stands by one year after its passage, but would have liked to see extended energy credits he tried to negotiate for. Garbarino also said there was a shortfall in the New York State essential health plan that was not realized, and that he’s working with a  team to find a solution.

Garbarino also supports the bill’s 20-hour work or volunteer requirements for Medicaid, and said there are exemptions for seniors, disabled, pregnant women and single people with dependent children.

“For the people that Medicaid was originally meant to help, they’re exempt from those work requirements,” Garbarino said.

Another accomplishment Garbarino said he’s proud of is securing full funding for the WTC Health Program earlier this year alongside U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and a bipartisan coalition of congresspeople. If re-elected, Garbarino said he will continue working with Gillibrand on fixing a pensions system that was heavily impacted by the deaths of hundreds of first responders on 9/11, and never fixed.

Garbarino said it’s important to have local representation that understands and will hear from constituents about the issues for community project funding.

“You don’t want some pencil pusher in some department in D.C. deciding where money should go,” Garbarino said. “The locals know what they need to do.”

For over a year, Garbarino has served as the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and said if re-elected, he will work with the agency as they look to reform TSA and FEMA, and wants to be part of those discussions so “They don’t hurt emergency response and management.”

As the house leader on Homeland Security, Garbarino said the committee has hosted hearings and bipartisan, closed-door roundtables with Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership as immigration raids nationwide increased under the second Trump administration. Garbarino also disavowed the ICE-involved shootings this past year in Minneapolis and New York City, and said ICE and DHS have changed protocols since those incidents.

“Former secretary [Kristi] Noem was a disaster,” Garbarino said. “The way she handled [everything], that’s why she’s ‘former’ secretary… We are now [with] the new secretary, and we are all trying to fix a lot of the damage she did.”

Garbarino said reforms include not conducting pullovers without lights and sirens, using car stops only if necessary, and new officer training that involves newer officers to be assigned to older ones that serve as mentors. Garbarino added he wished Democratic governors would allow their local police to assist in some operations and should be going “after the worst of the worst.”

“That was what the president campaigned on—the criminals, all the bad guys that came over through the four years of the Biden administration,” Garbarino said. “I don’t think we should be focusing on the business owner who’s been here for 30 years.”

Regarding President Trump’s tariff policies, Garbarino identified himself as a free-trader, and said he didn’t mind the president saying he’d enact tariffs if he felt it gave the U.S. a better deal, but added he would go back to Trump’s wide-sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs for a second look. With Trump facing judicial challenges over his personally enforced tariffs, Garbarino said he doesn’t believe Trump would get Congress’ approval to enact any more tariffs and that he’d be hesitant to increase anything.

Along with increasing tax benefits, Garbarino said he’s addressed the affordability crisis through legislation that supports home ownership costs and the speed of construction, and is working on energy transmission and permitting reform, which, if passed, would increase energy production and investment into transmission lines that would, according to Garbarino, make the cost of transmitting energy cheaper.

When asked why voters should give him a fourth term, Garbarino said he’s not afraid to work with different sides to accomplish legislation, like President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, that’s in Long Islander’s best interest.

“I’ve shown over the last six years when it comes to what I do in D.C., I’m a Long Islander first, so every vote I take is based on if it’s going to be beneficial to Long Island,” Garbarino said. “If it’s not, I vote against it… I do what I think is right for my constituents, and I’m going to continue to do that.”

Democrat Pat Halpin

Nearly 35 years after serving as Suffolk County’s youngest executive, Pat Halpin is returning to electoral politics in an attempt to unseat Republican Andrew Garbarino this November.

Since 1991, Halpin has continued public service as a member of the Suffolk County Water Authority, where after 12 years on the board he was appointed chair in 2018. Under his leadership, Halpin said the authority strengthened transparency, cut waste, and took “aggressive action to safeguard Long Island’s sole-source aquifer.”

Halpin also chaired the Town of Babylon Industrial Development Agency, and currently chairs the Town of Babylon’s Planning Board, where he said he helped ensure “responsible” re-development of neglected areas along Montauk Highway.

When asked why he’s returning to electoral politics after 35 years, Halpin said he became “very concerned about the future of our country” after President Trump’s second term began last year.

“Congress is not doing its job,” Halpin said. “The power rests within Congress: the power to declare war, the power to pay taxes, the power to impose tariffs… this Congress has just been a  rubber stamp for the MAGA president.”

“And frankly, the Republican Party that I always worked with throughout my years as an elected official and serving on these boards, that party doesn’t exist anymore,” Halpin added.

Halpin said if elected, he wants to end the ongoing war with Iran “that’s driving up all our energy prices” and would work to fix social security, which he said is at risk of running out in the coming years.

For development, Halpin said individual projects are decided at local municipal levels, but that he’d work to bring the “right federal tax incentives” to find opportunities to redevelop underutilized spaces, citing what he saw as a missed opportunity at the former Sunrise Mall in Massapequa, which is now planned for an Amazon warehouse.

“There’s enormous potential beyond an Amazon warehouse,” Halpin said. Large tax breaks to these corporations to build locally is another issue Halpin opposes.

Halpin said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which he terms the “Big, Ugly, Nasty Bill,” includes tax breaks for the construction of data centers and warehouses, both of which he opposes. Halpin also said he opposes the bill’s tax cuts for billionaires, and would ban congresspeople from purchasing individual stocks while in office.

Regarding health care, Halpin said he wants to tackle the growing consolidation of health care companies that drive up costs.

“We don’t have a system,” Halpin said. “It’s so chaotic that we end up spending more per person on health care than any other comparable nation in the world.”

Halpin added that he opposes cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and that more cuts will be coming next year if Congress doesn’t act. Halpin also wants to expand Medicare for people younger than 65, with an option to keep one’s own insurance, so that more people can have health insurance “without reinventing the wheel.”

Regarding immigration enforcement, Halpin said he opposes the actions of ICE this past year, and that DHS should be doing more thorough background checks for potential officers, including psychological tests and more extensive training.

“As a county executive… we made sure from day one the police in Suffolk County, and to this day they still do it, are very well trained,” Halpin said. “In this case, they get no training.”

Halpin also said he opposes Trump’s revocation of temporary protection status for immigrants who came to the U.S. under specific circumstances, including many members of the Salvadoran community on Long Island.

Despite his disagreements with ICE operations and wanting the agency to be held more accountable by Congress, Halpin does not support abolishing the agency as a whole.

The Cook Political Report rates the second congressional district as “solid Republican,” but Halpin said he’s won against tough odds before, with his victory in the state assembly in the 1980s being one of the first Democratic victories in his district in a century, and that he was only the second Democrat to become the county executive.

“So how did I win? By being a normal South Shore guy and a normal person. I’m not one of these zealots that it’s their way or the highway,” Halpin said. “I’m one of these people that wants to actually get the work done… I’ve always been for people, not politics.”