Rep.-elect Michael Lawler, (R-N.Y.), knocked off Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, last week.
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Redistricting a center of blame

Democrats have been knocked for drawing district lines that the Court of Appeals said not only defied constitutional procedures, but “were drawn with an unconstitutional partisan intent.”

State Sen. Mike Gianaris, a Queens Democrat who helped lead the redistricting efforts, said the blame isn’t with Democrats who tried to draw advantageous maps: It’s with the Court of Appeals, led by former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, for tossing them. DiFiore, a Republican-turned-Democrat, was appointed to the court by Cuomo.

“The only hope for substantial Democratic gains in the House out of New York would have been with the map that we passed,” Gianaris said Wednesday. “The fault lies with the courts that unjustly overturned them, rather than anyone else.”

A Democratic analysis provided to POLITICO on Wednesday showed that under the legislative maps, Democrats would have won four swing races upstate compared to winning only one on Election Day. The redistricting commission’s map would have likely led Democrats to win two toss up races: NY-22 in the Syracuse area, which Republican Brandon Williams won, and NY-17 in the Hudson Valley, which Maloney lost.

Under each of the scenarios, Republicans would have won the four Long Island seats and NY-11, which was won by GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis against Democrat Max Rose in Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn.

Even the court-drawn maps weren’t particularly bad for Democrats: In the eight seats that Republicans won, the GOP candidates all outperformed President Joe Biden’s margins in 2020; including six that Biden would have won two years ago.

“I haven’t conducted an autopsy to tell you a specific individual to blame, but the overall Democratic performance was the culprit, and we saw the distinction between that and our Senate candidates who actually did quite well across the state,” said Gianaris, pointing to Senate Democrats on the cusp of keeping its supermajority.

Still, the redistricting flap had other impacts. The fight pushed the congressional primaries from late June until Aug. 23, and it led to several bitter Democratic contests, including for Maloney, who had to fend off state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi after his seat was partly combined with the one held by Rep. Mondaire Jones in Westchester County. That forced Jones to run in a New York City primary that he lost.

The Aug. 23 primary led to a quick turnaround for candidates to run in November. It was a messy redistricting process that Hochul said Wednesday she wants to fix.

“There is a way to do it that does not result in the chaos that voters were subjected to this spring,” she said.