30. David Mejias

Six thousand—that’s how many more Republicans than Democrats are registered in this first-term Dem’s Farmingdale district. But his vulnerability is also his strength. For the
other Dems in the Legislature to keep their majority, they have to protect Mejias from hometown scorn, sometimes sacrificing their own agendas to his. Last September, for instance, he prevented the legislators from giving themselves a 90 percent pay raise.