Army Veteran Launches Campaign to Unseat New York Rep. Nick LaLota

Chris Gallant, a former helicopter pilot and air traffic controller, is running for the Democratic nomination against the Long Island Republican incumbent.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) speaks to reporters about a GOP meeting on a reconciliation bill on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 15, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—A former Army warrant officer has launched a campaign for New York’s First Congressional District seat during the 2026 election.

Christopher “Chris” Gallant is a native of Smithtown, New York. On Aug. 5, he announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for Congress.

The First District covers the whole eastern half of Long Island, including the wealthy Hamptons area. He has served as a warrant officer—i.e., a military officer who has not received a commission—in the New York Army National Guard, where he was an air traffic controller and, later, a helicopter pilot.

Gallant is seeking to challenge U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), who has served in that office since 2023. The First District has a Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI) score of “R+4” and has been GOP-held since former Rep. Lee Zeldin, now administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, won the seat from a Democrat in the 2014 election.

“I’m stepping up because Long Islanders deserve a leader who'll put their needs ahead of political agendas,” Gallant said on Facebook when announcing his campaign.

“Right now, Congress doesn’t operate with the same discipline or focus,” he wrote on his website, referring to his public service career.

Gallant is running on a platform of lowering the cost of living, which has exploded in Long Island, largely due to an increase in property prices as many professional workers in New York City move to the area. He has also emphasized protecting Medicare and Medicaid, two public health insurance programs that many Democrats have made the clarion call of their campaigns.

Gallant was previously featured by the U.S. Army and New York Army National Guard in news reports about the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the armed forces. In civilian life, Gallant became an air traffic controller employed by the Federal Aviation Administration at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. He also serves as a Suffolk County volunteer firefighter.

LaLota is one of several Republican members of Congress in New York in districts surrounding New York City and southern areas of the state. He was elected in 2022 and has been a persistent target of Democrats to unseat.

Several other New York GOP members of Congress, such as Anthony D'Esposito and Marcus Molinaro, were defeated in the 2024 election, while one, former Rep. George Santos, was expelled by the House of Representatives in 2023 for documented lying. He was convicted last summer of federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, for which he is serving a seven-year prison sentence.

Gallant, so far, is running only against Lukas Ventouras, a local Democratic official, in the Democratic primary, which will be held on June 23, 2026.