The Democratic primary in New York’s 11th Congressional district is heating up, even after the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a victory for Republican incumbent Nicole Malliotakis.
Former police officer and political staffer Michael DeCillis jumped into the race on Monday, condemning Malliotakis and her party.
“I’m running because President Trump and Congressional Republicans including Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis are destroying democracy at home, and diplomacy and security abroad,” he said in a statement. “We’re all struggling to pay bills while inflation and tariffs eat into our already thin family budgets. Families are finding it nearly impossible to afford healthcare, groceries, our kids’ education, and their homes, while Trump and his friends made literal billions through tax cuts and grift.”
A fourth-generation Staten Islander who now lives in Bay Ridge, DeCillis spent ten years with the NYPD, served as a paramedic on 9/11, and spent several years as a special education teacher in New York City public schools.
More recently, DeCillis worked as a political advisor and Chief of Staff for then-Assembly member Mathylde Frontus before taking on a gig as assistant counsel for the NYC Districting Commission. He has mounted two congressional campaigns in NY-11 before, but ended both before Election Day.
DeCillis slammed Trump’s administration and the actions of all congressional Republicans, and condemned Malliotakis for supporting the president’s nationwide ICE crackdown and his military campaign on Iran.
“Malliotakis has supported every inhumane, cruel, and unconstitutional policy that Trump has implemented,” he said.
The candidate said Malliotakis and her colleagues in the Republican-majority House “have been absent for the past year,” and had failed to act “as a co-equal branch of government.”
“House Republicans ended 2025 as the least productive Congress in modern history – while we all live with the fear and anxiety of not knowing if we’ll even have democratic elections this fall,” he said. “Enough of this insanity, I’m here to get to work restoring and strengthening democracy, and to bring focus and actual solutions to the residents of NY-11.”
DeCillis will face off against longtime teacher Troy McGhie — who declared his candidacy last summer — in the June Democratic primary. With the Republican race so far uncontested, the winner of the Democratic primary will go on to battle Malliotakis in the November general election.
Democrats put up a fight in NY-11.
Democrats are hoping to win the House majority with the 2026 midterms, and only need to flip a few Republican-held seats to do so. For a while, it seemed that the party had some hope in NY-11.
Last month, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled that the existing lines of NY-11 — which includes all of Staten Island and part of southern Brooklyn — unlawfully diluted the voting power of Black and Latino residents, and ordered a new map to be drawn before the midterms.
Democrats pushed for a new map that would combine Staten Island with lower Manhattan, rather than southern Brooklyn, bringing more progressive voters into the district and opening the door for a Democrat to flip the district.
Malliotakis, who likely would have lost her seat in a redrawn district, appealed the decision and sought an emergency stay from the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the court ruled that the old map must be used while the appeals process is underway, meaning it will be in place for the 2026 midterms.
Though NY-11 has historically been fairly conservative, Democrat Max Rose ousted a Republican incumbent in 2018, but served just a single term before he was unseated by Malliotakis. Rose attempted to retake the seat in 2022, but again lost to Malliotakis.
Southern Brooklyn has become increasingly conservative in recent years. In 2022, several longtime Democratic Assembly Members — including DeCillis’ former boss, Frontus — were unseated by Republicans in a local “Red Wave.” In 2024, Republican Steve Chan defeated Democratic incumbent Iwen Chu in state Senate District 17, where she had eked out a narrow victory just two years earlier.
