Democrats Pass a N.Y. House Map That Modestly Benefits Them
The News
Democrats in New York adopted a new congressional map on Wednesday, using their supermajorities in the State Legislature to draw district lines that would improve their chances of winning the House majority in November, but not drastically.
The most significant change proposed by Democratic lawmakers was in the 22nd District, now represented by a first-term Republican, Brandon Williams.Credit…The New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment
The Details: Democrats will benefit, but less than expected.
The new lines would shift two key swing districts meaningfully to the left, giving Democratic candidates newfound advantages.
In one of those districts, in Central New York, the changes are expected to immediately endanger Representative Brandon Williams, a first-term Republican. His newly configured district voted for President Biden by 11.6 percentage points in 2020.
In the other, on Long Island, the map shuffles a handful of suburban communities to provide Representative-elect Tom Suozzi, a Democrat who flipped a Republican seat in a special election this month, a much easier path to re-election.
Yet after Democrats spent two years and millions of dollars fighting for a shot at redrawing the map, the plan they came up with generally exhibited an unexpectedly light touch. The partisan makeup of 24 the state’s 26 House districts barely changed, including several Republican-held swing districts.
Why It Matters: The map is key to the broader fight for the House majority.
The new map once again positions New York as one of the nation’s pre-eminent House battlegrounds. With a half dozen seats in play, both parties agree the fate of Republicans’ paper-thin majority could be determined in the state.
In many ways, it was an unlikely outcome.
Democrats tried to use their redistricting powers in New York to adopt an aggressive gerrymander in 2022, and were slapped down by the courts. The replacement map imposed by a judge helped Republicans win a four-seat majority.
When the state was granted a do-over this year, both parties expected Democrats to try to offset the three to four seats Republicans are expected to gain from a new gerrymander in North Carolina.
Instead, Democrats in New York appeared chastened by their earlier missteps, and constrained after a bipartisan state commission created to guide the redistricting process passed its own compromise plan.