A New York state court may have given national Democrats the edge they need to flip control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024.
After a lengthy legal saga, the appeals court on Thursday ordered state lawmakers to redraw competitive congressional maps the state had temporarily implemented for the 2022 midterm elections. The court sided with Democrats in a decision some observers believe will give liberals an electoral advantage in as many as a half-dozen districts across the Empire State that were previously deemed tossups.
For national Democrats, the decision is a significant one. While New York state politics rarely have much influence on the direction of the country, recent redistricting battles playing out at the state level have taken on new importance in a bitterly divided Congress where Republicans have only a 10-seat majority in the House.
And New York, which has not supported a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984, has long been seen as a reliable source of power for Democrats. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York City congressman, ascended to the post of House minority leader at the start of the congressional session.
That influence was tested in the 2022 midterms after the state’s maps were redrawn by a neutral special master following moves by the Democratically controlled New York State Assembly to draw maps giving Democrats a statistical advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts while lumping most of New York’s Republican voters into a handful of “super districts.”