ULSTER COUNTY, NY — Law and order is on the ballot nationwide this November, but with many Democrats fearful of another Jan. 6-like insurrection in 2025, it’s becoming a centerpiece in some of the most hotly contested congressional seats in the nation this cycle.
“I am not a traditional or career politician. I'm a cop,” Alison Esposito — who spent nearly 25 years in the NYPD — told the audience at a recent Ulster County Chamber of Commerce candidates forum. “That's who I am, that's what I am, that's kind of what I will always be. I have decided to throw my hat into this arena and go into government, but I will never be a politician. I'll always be a cop.”
Esposito’s challenging two-term incumbent Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) in their battle to represent the Hudson Valley in Washington next year.
“Candidates who claim to be for law and order supporting a convicted felon who incited insurrectionists to attack and kill law enforcement, I don't know how you rationalize that,” Ryan — a West Point graduate who served two tours in Iraq — told Raw Story after the two sparred on stage at their candidate’s forum. “I'll let her try to explain that. I got nothing for you.”
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Similar dynamics are at play in Bucks County, Penn. except the roles are reversed, as West Point graduate Ashley Ehasz, a Democrat, challenges four-term incumbent Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a former F.B.I. agent and federal prosecutor.
“He is someone who is in a deeply dangerous position of whitewashing the far-right extremist message — he takes it, he whitewashes it — so that way it becomes more palatable to voters, which is extremely dangerous,” Ehasz told Raw Story in her campaign headquarters recently. “He knows better and yet chooses to do wrong. He does the bidding of the Trumpists and the MAGA extremists.”
While political operatives have tried to focus the 2024 election on the economy, immigration and abortion, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is front and center in some tight races that could decide who controls Congress next year.
“It’d be charming to have a female Donald Trump”
In the Hudson Valley, Esposito is new to politics, but this isn’t her first rodeo. In 2022, she ran for lieutenant governor of New York on the losing ticket with former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY).
During her time in the NYPD, she was part of a group of officers sued by three Black women who argued they were wrongly arrested for shoplifting — a case Esposito lost, costing New York City taxpayers $95,000. She also lost a lawsuit for “allegedly arresting and assaulting an infant,” which cost taxpayers another $25,000.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in 2020, Esposito was a commanding officer in Brooklyn when protesters and police clashed across New York City. Esposito says she’s running because she “saw an attack on public safety, law and order.” Still, she hasn’t spoken much on the brutality unleashed on the law enforcement officials who protected the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“What do you make of what happened to the Capitol Police officers on Jan. 6, like them being attacked?” Raw Story asked.
“First of all, I condemn harshly any criminal activity, including anyone attacking a cop. Done and done,” Esposito responded before, in the same breath, changing the subject. “In the same way that I will harshly criticize the riots of 2020 that Kamala Harris was funding to bail out the perpetrators. People like [New York Attorney General] Letitia James and [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg, instead of going after the perpetrators of the riots in New York City that were burning our city. They were going after the cops that were defending themselves.”
When the moderator asked who she planned to vote for in the presidential contest, Esposito demurred.
Her opponent, the incumbent Pat Ryan, says her response was telling. He was trained on West Point’s honor code — "a Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do" — and says Esposito’s proving she’s no leader.
“Toleration is a big part of the problem in today's Republican Party, certainly for my opponent, where she's locked behind them, hasn't said a single thing that she disagrees with on,” Ryan told Raw Story. “She had another opportunity today to do that. I gave her one in our last debate.”
While Esposito evaded the question of who she’s voting for in front of dozens of business owners from across the community, afterwards Raw Story pressed her on it.
“Are you gonna vote for Trump?” Raw Story asked.
“Am I gonna vote for Trump? Yeah. I'm not voting for Harris. I'm not,” Esposito said. “Absolutely. Yeah, I'm voting for Trump.”
That seemed pretty clear to voters in the audience who weren’t too impressed with all the ducking and dodging, even if they did leave the forum with a better understanding of the candidates.
“They both made a career out of not answering questions in there,” Chelsea, a small business owner who asked we not use her full name, told Raw Story.
Still, she says Ryan won her over.
“I disagreed on many points, but he is the best option, so that's who I’m gonna vote for,” Chelsea told Raw Story. “He's been outrageous about Israel, but he's like the hometown boy.”
As for Esposito’s tough-on-crime platform?
“It’d be charming to have a female Donald Trump, but, yeah, I just wouldn't do it,” Chelsea said.
“He deeply misleads voters”
Three hours south on I-87, another West Point graduate is locked in an intense battle in the all-important suburbs of Philadelphia.
If elected, Ashley Ehasz would be the first female West Point graduate ever elected to Congress. She says the military academy's motto — “duty, honor, country” — is partly why she’s forcing Fitzpatrick into this rematch of their 2022 contest.
Earlier this year, the Lugar Center and the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy named Fitzpatrick the most bipartisan member of the House for the fifth year in a row, but Ehasz isn’t buying the moderate veneer her Republican opponent presents to voters.
“It’s complete bulls—t. That's all it is,” Ehasz told Raw Story. “I'll keep coming back to pro-choice, pro-democracy leadership, and I think Brian Fitzpatrick is neither of those, and yet he deeply misleads voters into, frankly, trying to trick them into thinking he is.”
Fitzpatrick didn’t make himself available to Raw Story for this piece.
While Fitzpatrick voted to certify the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, Ehasz says it was smoke and mirrors because he later opposed the select Jan. 6 committee.
When it comes to GOP leadership, Ehasz also points out that Fitzgerald endorsed the speaker bid of far-right Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) — who spearheaded the failed Biden impeachment effort this year — before Fitzpatrick joined his party in unanimously electing now-Speaker Mike Johnson, knowing he penned an amicus brief in support of efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“That does not say moderate to me, does not say bipartisan to me, and does not say, ‘I'm gonna protect democracy’ to me,” Ehasz told Raw Story.
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