Democrat Rob Lubin doesn’t check the usual boxes for a congressional candidate running in New York’s Second District. He’s in his 20s, never held political office, and owns a small business. Lubin hopes with these characteristics, he can bring a fresh perspective to Congress if he wins in next month’s election.
The 29-year-old Democratic nominee for Congress lives in Lindenhurst, where he manages an online fashion marketplace called IN-HOUSE. Lubin founded the business on the heels of other companies closing their doors when the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. Despite failing to qualify for federal assistance loans because his company was too new, Lubin’s business survived.
“I was starting a business, pursuing the American dream, and struggling with it because I was getting taxed more than I was making in revenue at my company, and I think that was ridiculous,” Lubin said. “I suffered through COVID, and I felt right then and there that it was the government’s job to help our small businesses thrive, because if you’re going to push the American dream, you have to be there for Americans when they start to dream.”
Along with supporting small businesses, Lubin is campaigning on lowering health care and housing costs, protecting access to abortion, and securing the border, issues that personally impact the young congressional candidate.
Lubin is blind in his left eye due to an incurable disease, and after having an emergency surgery to stop his eye from degrading further, he’s been taking medicine that no insurance company would initially accept.
“I now consider myself someone who really understands the health care space and the insurance space, having fought through it myself,” Lubin said. “But there are too many cases in our country where people are having to choose between food on their table and health coverage, and that is something that just drives me absolutely nuts.”
Potential solutions Lubin hopes to bring forward in Congress would include capping prescription costs, making Affordable Care Act subsidies permanent, and investing in community health centers.
Lubin is also recently engaged to his fiancée, Romi, and believes that finding an affordable home to raise a future family is infeasible for most young people like him.
“It’s virtually impossible for people in my age group. It wasn’t the case back in the day,” Lubin said. “You’re finding yourself in a situation where food costs a lot, gas for my car costs a lot, I can’t buy a home, and it’s really hard to start a small business because there isn’t enough support in such a bureaucratic system. How are we actually going forward?”
To alleviate the rising cost of living, Lubin said he’d bring back the State and Local Tax Relief (SALT) deduction by lifting the current $10,000 cap and will prioritize lowering taxes for average Long Islanders.
Immigration is another stance Lubin takes personally because his mother moved to New York from Italy in her 20s. Growing up in a bilingual household, Lubin believes that America should welcome immigrants through legal channels while recognizing the high rates of illegal border crossings.
If elected to Congress, Lubin said he would support legislation similar to the bipartisan border security bill that failed in the Senate recently, and would work with Republicans to make a deal.
To get his message across to voters, Lubin said he’s running his campaign in all towns and hamlets across the Second Congressional District, which stretches from Massapequa to Eastport, and he encourages other young people like him to get involved in the political process.
“Each hamlet has a unique perspective on what they’re fighting for in each town,” Lubin said. “There are areas of my district that are truly underrepresented that I don’t believe are being listened to enough. My goal when I got into this was to be a representative for all corners of the district, not just the people that support me… and that’s what we’ve done.”
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