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Election Day has arrived: Here’s our 2018 election guide

Congress

Lee Zeldin

Incumbent Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) is a graduate of William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach, the State University of New York at Albany and Albany Law School.

He completed the Army ROTC program and served on active duty in the Army for four years as a military intelligence officer, a prosecutor and a military magistrate.

He was assigned to the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division in the summer of 2006, and was deployed to Tikrit, Iraq. He is still in the Army Reserves.

Mr. Zeldin, 38, opened a law practice in Smithtown in 2008. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 2010 and re-elected in 2012. He lists among his accomplishments repealing the MTA payroll tax and helping to create a peer-to-peer counseling service for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

He ran unsuccessfully in 2008 against former congressman Tim Bishop, but challenged Mr. Bishop again in 2013 and won the 1st District seat. He was re-elected in 2016.

Mr. Zeldin has the Republican, Conservative, Independence and Reform party lines on this year’s ballot.

Perry Gershon

Mr. Gershon emerged as the Democratic candidate for the 1st Congressional District after winning a five-way primary in June.

Both of his parents were successful in the field of medical research. Mr. Gershon, 56, graduated from Yale in 1984 and initially opened a sports bar.

He then moved on to a 25-year career as a commercial real estate lender in Manhattan.

He has targeted health care, protecting the environment, gun safety and bringing high-paying jobs to the area among his top priorities.

Mr. Gershon says he is an avid runner who has participated in 21 marathons and has used running to raise money for charitable causes.

This is his first run for elected office, although he said he volunteered on the presidential campaigns of Ted Kennedy and Gary Hart in the 1980s.

Mr. Gershon has the Democratic and Working Families party ballot lines.

Kate Browning, a former Suffolk County legislator who was among the candidates Mr. Gershon defeated in the Democratic primary, remains on the ballot on the Women’s Equality line, although she is not actively campaigning.