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Representative Marc Molinaro has spent his decades of public service building a reputation as a particular brand of New York Republican: a measured and courteous pragmatist more interested in responsible governing than in ideological battles.
But that reputation is being tested as Mr. Molinaro, a first-term congressman, seeks re-election against Josh Riley, a Democrat, in a rematch from 2022 that has turned into one of the most hostile, and consequential, House races in the country this year.
In a blistering debate last week during which the candidates traded charges of lying and corruption, Mr. Molinaro sought to tie Mr. Riley to Democrats’ border policies, blaming them for violent crimes including a rape in Albany and the murder of a family in Rochester.
“Why?” Mr. Molinaro said, his face flushing angrily. “Because they use the legal argument that Josh Riley made to surrender the border.”
Mr. Riley, a lawyer and policy analyst, responded quickly.
“Every one of those incidents that he’s talking about and putting on TV — that happened on his watch. He’s in Congress,” he said, noting that Mr. Molinaro had joined other House Republicans, at former President Donald J. Trump’s urging, in rejecting bipartisan immigration legislation supported by the Border Patrol.
“If he was even the slightest bit serious about solving this problem, he would have done the right thing,” Mr. Riley said.
The race is in many ways a microcosm of the ideological battles playing out between Democrats and Republicans across the country this year. Both parties agree that the U.S. economy today does not work for working people. But their solutions to the problem, and whom they blame for it, diverge sharply.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Riley rails against what he calls profiteering corporations and the politicians who do their bidding, touting his promise not to accept corporate PAC contributions and his support for term limits.
Mr. Molinaro takes a different approach, embracing Mr. Trump and leaning heavily on anti-immigrant sentiment. His ads and campaign statements seek to pit hard-working New Yorkers against immigrants who, Mr. Molinaro says, are exploiting the Democrats’ largess and lenient border policies.
In ads and emails, he criticizes Mr. Riley for doing legal work in opposition to Mr. Trump’s Muslim ban and on behalf of the young immigrants known as Dreamers. Mr. Riley’s efforts, Mr. Molinaro says, are part of the Democrats’ “open border plan” that “grants mass amnesty, gives freebies to illegal immigrants and would bankrupt Social Security.”
Immigration is a major issue in New York this year amid an influx of migrants to the state. But Mr. Molinaro has dug in deeper than most, embracing far-right rhetoric and occasionally going so far as to indulge in racist conspiracy theories.
After a drumbeat of online posts about crimes committed by immigrants, his campaign account shared a post on X.com last month warning that Haitian immigrants had “carved up” residents’ pets in Springfield, Ohio, with the intention of eating them. Although the claim would later be debunked, Mr. Molinaro has repeatedly declined to walk it back or apologize, instead parroting an argument made by JD Vance, Mr. Trump’s running mate, that his intent was to bring attention to a broader issue.
Mr. Molinaro’s rightward pivot has been noticed by observers across the political spectrum, baffling his allies as well as some institutional supporters, particularly given his background.
Mr. Molinaro was once something of a star in New York Republican circles. Elected mayor of the Village of Tivoli in Dutchess County at 19, he mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in 2018, courting moderate voters by distancing himself from Mr. Trump. In 2023, Mr. Molinaro’s voting record made him the second most bipartisan member of Congress, according to the nonprofit Lugar Center.
In an interview, Mr. Molinaro, now 49, defended his rhetoric while acknowledging that it might strike some people as “out of character.”
“The public now is angry,” he said. “And the people I represent are furious.”
Mr. Molinaro has always been most comfortable speaking as an underdog — as a Republican in a state where Democrats control the State Legislature and every statewide seat, and an upstater battling the economic and cultural dominance of New York City. He has sought again this year to claim this familiar territory despite his incumbency, suggesting that Mr. Riley, a Harvard Law School graduate, has more in common with the corporate elite than with disaffected New York voters.
Mr. Riley rejected Mr. Molinaro’s claim that his education or career had changed his commitment to his neighbors. (His campaign website mentions his law school degree, but omits that it was from Harvard.)
“I saw it was the powerful special interests and the corrupt politicians who were selling us out,” Mr. Riley, 43, said in an interview. “So I got a law degree to fight back, and that is exactly what I have done.” He added: “He can say whatever he wants — and he will, because he doesn’t want to talk about his record.”
Mr. Riley, who lives with his family in Ithaca, roots his campaign in his childhood in Endicott, N.Y., near Binghamton, and the way the town was hollowed out as jobs moved overseas. Since losing to Mr. Molinaro two years ago, Mr. Riley has mobilized a more powerful operation. He has raised more than $8 million, according to his campaign, and that has allowed him to hammer his opponent in TV ads since July. One recent fund-raising pitch featured David Letterman and Al Franken, the former Minnesota senator whom Mr. Riley once served as counsel.
He has criticized Mr. Molinaro for repeatedly voting to make it more difficult to obtain an abortion. Some of his ads claim that Mr. Molinaro would vote for a national abortion ban. Mr. Molinaro denies that.
Mr. Riley has also called out his own party, saying that Democrats have been too slow to act on the border problem and calling for comprehensive immigration reform. But he lamented his opponent’s rhetoric on the subject, saying it had exacerbated the problem.
Strategists with both parties agree that the race in the 19th Congressional District, which sprawls from the rolling hills of Columbia County across the Catskill Mountains and up to Ithaca, is among a small number that will determine control of the House. In 2020, the district voted for President Biden by a four-point margin; two years later, it favored the Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, over the incumbent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, by seven points.
The district’s size and the stakes of the race are driving an avalanche of ad spending — more than $24 million has been planned — that is dwarfing what is going into races in nearby districts.
Mr. Riley holds a distinct fund-raising advantage over Mr. Molinaro, reporting a haul of more than $3 million in the last quarter. Mr. Molinaro has raised less than Mr. Riley in each of the last four quarters, but has received generous support from the Congressional Leadership Fund, the National Republican Campaign Committee and Elon Musk’s super PAC.
Mr. Molinaro also benefits from a talent for retail politics honed over his three decades in public office. This gift was on display this month during a campaign stop at Fly Creek Cider Mill and Orchard in Cooperstown, where the congressman sipped cider, raced ducks and bantered with visitors about the Mets.
For the establishment’s owner, Bill Michaels, the visit was more than a photo op.
“My biggest challenge,” he told anyone who would listen, “is access to labor. It’s not taxes, it’s not regulation, it’s not the cost of energy.”
Mr. Michaels said he had struggled for years to fill jobs at the cider mill and gift shop, which draws more than 100,000 visitors a year. Many people he hired were unreliable, he said. He currently has 12 open positions, a third of the work force.
He said he had found a lifeline in the H2B visa program, which lets him hire workers from abroad to work the cash register and serve drinks. But the program is capped and, like everything else in Washington, subject to party politics. In the fervor over immigration, the visa program has also been hindered, he said.
Mr. Molinaro listened to Mr. Michaels’s concerns and promised to look at the legislation, placating the proprietor for the time being. Asked whether he would support Mr. Molinaro in the coming election, Mr. Michaels, a Republican, smiled wanly.
“Yes?” he said. “ I think so. But there’s just such an impasse.”
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