New York’s 3rd Congressional District confines itself to the northern shore of Long Island starting at the edge of New York City and jutting eastward taking in Oyster Bay and North Hempstead as well as dozens of other small and very small communities along the northern shore. Bill O’Reilly of Fox News fame has lived in the district, but its most famous resident is clearly none other than 26th President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, whose home Sagamore Hill is in Oyster Bay.

The race itself features two openly gay men vying for the open seat, the republican George DeVolder Santos made light of the rarity of his own circumstance, “I’m a gay republican in New York State, I am probably a walking living breathing contradiction.” Santos has a great American story, and he is still fairly young, his family fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine to Belgium and then to Brazil, they escaped Brazil in the 1980s because of their socialist policies and finally made it to the United States. Santos call himself proof of the American dream he has led a successful finance career following in his mother’s footsteps. His mother had to flee the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and was able to escape but, unfortunately died a few years later.

George Devolder-Santos is solidly conservative almost of the smash mouth variety in tone, he is pro cop, pro life and pro law and order. He has received the endorsement of local law enforcement. And he stresses the kitchen table issues of the economy. Santos seems to be a hard working candidate that brings a lot of passion to his politics. And he doesn’t spend much time talking about himself.

Robert Zimmerman is also gay but is more likely to tell you about it. Zimmerman’s background is a smorgasboard of insider appointments and jobs, he got his start working for two different congressmen and later helped a third, he then got into the communications business and is known in democrat circles as somewhat of a PR maven and an effective fundraiser. He got pretty high profile appointments from Democrat presidents, to the Kennedy Center board by Clinton and to the Council of the Humanities by Obama, he is also on the Board of the American Museum of Natural History.

But all these glittering prizes for Zimmerman flow from his involvement in Democrat politics across the decades, he is a longtime member of the DNC and touts his efforts in dismantling the superdelegate system. Ideologically he is solidly democrat with no daylight between himself and the party platform. When asked to describe himself he noted, “grass roots political activism defines who I am.”

He has attacked his opponent for his pro life stance, and smartly tries to stress popular issues like reinstating the State and Local Tax Deduction caps that went into place with the Trump tax cuts. Somewhat oddly on his website he talks about a two state solution for Israel which is kind of a fringe issue to put front and center, but he likes to think himself as someone who supports underdogs. Santos has attacked him as supporting polticians who coddle criminals, the issue of no cash bail has exploded in New York in the last year since they implemented the policy.  One shouldn’t underestimate Zimmerman however, he is pretty polished in all his appearances, and comes off fairly well in his demeanor which shouldn’t be surprising for someone who owns a PR shop.

On the financial side of the race, George Santos tried to run in 2020 for congress but was unsuccessful, getting outspent heavily at the time ($400k to $2.2 million) however he has been able to outspend his well connected opponent quite resoundingly since the beginning of the year $2.4 million to $1.63 million. The cash on hand battle is neck and neck though with Santos having $603k to Zimmerman’s $611k.

RealClear Politics and Fox News list this race as a tossup, the Cook Political Report has it in the “Leans Democrat” column. There has been only one public poll for this race (from early September) and it has Zimmerman up by only one point 42-41. Zimmerman is well below the 50% threshold so that could be a good sign for Santos.