Congressional and State legislative redistricting maps for New York State were signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul last night, solidifying election boundaries for November that could help Democrats flip districts across the state and on the East End.
The new district maps were passed through the state legislature after several party-line votes this week. The maps were drawn by the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, which is dominated by Democrats — having four members appointed by Democratic leaders and two by Republican leaders.
New maps are redrawn after every decennial census based on changes in population in the state. The partisan maps were passed after the bipartisan New York State Independent Redistricting Commission — created by constitutional amendment in 2014 to make the redistricting process more transparent and independent of the state legislature — failed to agree on a plan and sent two sets of maps to the legislature. Those maps were rejected and failed to pass a vote.
Perhaps the biggest change on Long Island’s congressional maps, and perhaps the most visually interesting, is the First Congressional District, which will surrender parts of the South Shore and the southern parts of Brookhaven in exchange for snaking its way through the middle of Suffolk County and into the westernmost part of the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County.
The district’s political leaning would change from a swing district which formerly favored Republicans to one that has a solid Democratic majority, according to 2020 election voting patterns recorded in Redistricting and You: New York, an online map created by researchers at the Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
The new district and several others like it are poised to give Democrats in New York the advantage in flipping three House seats during a year when they lost one entirely in the state of New York. States which lean Democrat across the country incurred a net loss of two seats because of reapportionment, while Republican states saw a net gain of three seats. Democrats are currently on track to gain two to three seats across the country because of redistricting efforts, barring changes in political opinions since the 2020 election, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Redistricting will cause changes in the East End’s state representation too, but isn’t expected to change much in a political battle. The new Assembly district map separates Riverhead from the rest of the five East End towns, with 1st Assembly District gaining Southold Town in the South Fork-dominated District, while the 2nd Assembly District loses Southold and gains more territory in Brookhaven and the northwestern portion of Southampton Town.
On the other hand, the map for the First Senate District, currently represented by Republican Senator Anthony Palumbo, would not change much geographically, but could have political implications in a closely contested race for the seat.
The First Senate District favored President Joe Biden in the 2020 election by 2,000 votes. There would have been a wider margin, about 9,000 votes more, for Biden if the First Senate District would have been drawn in the new redistricting plan. This could impact Palumbo’s reelection chances, having won in 2020 by less than 5,000 votes against Democrat Laura Ahearn.
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