New York Democrats' new House map does little to rebalance a playing field tilted to the GOP

Democratic legislators in New York unveiled a new congressional map on Tuesday, but it's a far cry from the aggressive gerrymander that many were expecting—and many partisans were hoping for.

According to data from Dave's Redistricting App, the new plan does not make any significant changes on a partisan level compared with either the court-drawn map used in 2022 or with the proposal from the state's bipartisan redistricting commission that Democratic lawmakers rejected on Monday. Overall, Democrats would alter only 10 of the commission's districts, affecting just 2.3% of the state's population.

Only one Republican-held swing seat would become noticeably bluer, Rep. Brandon Williams' 22nd District, in the Syracuse area. But even there, Democrats would merely preserve the small changes that the commission proposed for the district rather than making more dramatic alterations to gain a further advantage. Consequently, the district would shift from a 53-45 margin for Joe Biden under the 2022 map to a 55-43 Biden edge under the Democrats' new plan.

Democratic chances of victory would not improve in a meaningful way in any of the six other Republican-held districts that lawmakers conceivably could have targeted: Nick LaLota's 1st, Andrew Garbarino's 2nd, Anthony D'Esposito's 4th, Nicole Malliotakis' 11th, Mike Lawler's 17th, and Marc Molinaro's 19th.