The defeat of three New York freshman Republican members of the U.S. House, Anthony D’Esposito in Nassau County, Marc Molinaro in a district running from the Massachusetts state line to Ithaca, and Brandon Williams from the Syracuse area, show once again that the unbiased and fair congressional lines drawn by the state courts in 2022 were in fact, unbiased and fair.
Two years ago this trio won their seats when their party’s candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, held the incumbent Democrat, Gov. Hochul, to a winning margin of 377,834 votes. Compare that to the preliminary edge of 909,322 votes that Kamala Harris won last week against Donald Trump, even as she lost the national popular vote.
Or compare the Democratic advantage that Joe Biden won versus Trump in 2020 of 1,992,889 New York votes, or in 2018, when Democrat Andrew Cuomo was reelected governor with 1,427,738 excess votes. Defeated that year was Molinaro. Finally, two years before then, in 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 1,736,590 votes in this state.
So the far smaller Hochul plurality in 2022 of less than 400,000 dragged down Democrats further down the ballot.
Weakness at the top of the ticket was a major factor of why the GOP picked up so many seats in New York in 2022, including stinkers like fraudster George Santos. The Republican victories in this state, even as Democrats had very good outcomes in the rest of the country, was not due to the shape of the districts, which were designed to be competitive by court-appointed Special Master Jonathan Cervas, an expert from Carnegie Mellon University. The Dems’ problem was that they had a lousy year in this state.
There is nothing better to measure a district’s competitiveness in how it swings back and forth between the two parties than running the same two candidates in back-to-back election years.
We saw that with D’Esposito and his 2022 and 2024 Democratic rival, Laura Gillen, and with Molinaro, who faced off twice against Democrat Josh Riley. Same candidates. Same districts. Different results. In 2022, the two Republicans won. In 2024, the two Democrats prevailed. The lines and the contenders didn’t change. The politics changed. Regardless of whatever party you favor, this is the best outcome; that the public decided.
In 2022, Albany Democrats sidelined the inaugural outing of the state Independent Redistricting Commission to seek a brazen partisan advantage for themselves, drawing ridiculous lines that would have wiped out almost every GOP House seat in New York.
Their actions violated the state Constitution’s anti-gerrymandering requirements and were ruled out of order by the state courts, and upheld by the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. Cervas then did his work. Democrats complained that the fix was in. They were only right that Cervas fixed what was wrong and created balanced and sensible constituencies where the public, not the map maker, would have the final say on who the representatives would be.
When the Democrats wailed after their 2022 defeats, we said to get better candidates and run better campaigns. Or keep the same candidates and run better campaigns. That they did, aided by the presidential balloting.
The next round, in 2026, will be a chance for the Republicans to try to win back the seats they lost last week. Which is exactly how it’s supposed to work.
