Democrats pass a New York House Map that modestly benefits them

Why it matters: The map is key to the broader battle for the majority in the House of Representatives.

The new map repositions New York as one of the nation’s premier House battlegrounds. With half a dozen seats still in play, both parties agree that the fate of the state’s razor-thin majority of Republicans can be decided.

In many ways it was an unlikely outcome.

Democrats tried to use their redistricting powers in New York to pass an aggressive gerrymander in 2022, but were crushed by the courts. The court-ordered replacement map helped Republicans gain a four-seat majority.

When the state went into redistricting this year, both parties expected Democrats would try to offset the three to four seats Republicans are expected to gain with a new gerrymander in North Carolina.

Instead, Democrats in New York appeared to be chastened by their previous missteps, and limited after a bipartisan state commission created to guide the redistricting process adopted its own compromise plan.

The answer: Some Democrats were dejected and Republicans were pleasantly surprised.

The middle-of-the-road approach amounted to brutal disappointment for many partisan Democrats. They vented that the party was wasting its supermajority in the state legislature by refusing to take on Republican incumbents.

Privately, party leaders sold the map as a targeted but effective upgrade to current lines that they believed could withstand another lawsuit. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House minority leader, had blessed the outlines of the settlement.

“This is a much fairer map for the people of New York State,” he said Wednesday before the vote. “We will put it in their hands to determine what representation in Congress looks like after the November elections.”

Republicans had resisted any attempt to redraw districts and were largely excluded from mapmaking. But on Wednesday, Republicans in Congress and state legislatures said they were pleasantly surprised that Democrats had not gone further.

Three Republicans joined every Democrat to approve the maps in the Senate, and a dozen joined Democrats to approve them in the General Assembly.

“There are little changes here and there, but none of them are material from a political perspective,” said John Faso, a former Republican congressman who was at the center of the redistricting fight.