That’s because much of Democrats’ national redistricting advantage rested on their gerrymander in New York. The now-invalidated map included 20 seats with a FiveThirtyEight partisan lean of D+5 or bluer and only four seats with a partisan lean of R+5 or redder. It also included two swing seats, but even those had slight Democratic leans (D+3 and D+4). In other words, all else being equal, we’d have expected Democrats to win 22 of New York’s 26 House seats (85 percent) under the map. But that’s way out of proportion with how New York usually votes for instance, President Biden got just 61 percent of the vote there in 2020. There are currently 19 Democrats and eight Republicans in New York’s congressional delegation, so this map likely would have resulted in Democrats gaining three House seats in the 2022 election and Republicans losing four, from just New York alone. (The map converted the 1st and 11th districts from light red to light blue, and it also moved the swing district currently held by Republican Rep.
It also chose a Republican-held seat upstate as the district New York would have to lose as a result of its relatively sluggish population growth in the 2020 census.)3 John Katko more firmly into Democratic territory.
Those heady gains and losses were the foundation for the big national gains Democrats had run up about a month ago.
