LOCAL NEWS
A friendly map
Manhattan’s new Congressional
lines likely to benefi t Maloney
BY MAX PARROTT
About a week after taking charge
of the redistricting process, the
New York Legislature released
a set of Congressional maps that refl
ect the results of the 2020 Census
on Jan. 30.
Republicans have pushed back on
the proposed lines for boosting the
Democrats’ chances to fl ip several seats
in the 2022 elections at a time when the
party’s congressional majority could be
in jeopardy. In the fi rmly Democratic
territory of Manhattan, however, the
impact of the new maps will play out in
the Democratic primary, and is likely to
either benefi t incumbent lawmakers or
prove negligible.
The new maps were drawn by the
Democratically controlled state Senate
and Assembly after the long contentious
process led by the Independent
Redistricting Commission failed bipartisan
consensus and could not deliver
one set of maps. The proposal is expected
to pass the state legislature and
receive the governor’s signature in time
for the June primary.
Though there are some signifi cant
shifts to the lines on Manhattan, in
many ways, the changes in the outer
borough may end up playing a bigger
role in the coming primaries for Manhattan’s
congressional delegation. The
four Congressional seats that stretch
over Manhattan all cross over into the
outer boroughs. Two of the three candidates
who weathered primary challenges
last election cycle, fared signifi cantly
worse in Brooklyn and Queens than on
their Manhattan turf.
In the most stark changes to Manhattan’s
Congressional map, Congresswoman
Carolyn Maloney’s 11th District
on Manhattan’s East Side, is expanding
westward. The 15-term representative,
who currently represents most of the
East Side as well as Astoria and Long
Island City in Queens and Greenpoint
in Brooklyn, would recede deeper
into Manhattan.
Under the new maps, portions of
Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea and the West
Village, now under Congressman Jerry
Nadler’s 10th District, would fall within
Maloney’s. On the other hand, not
much will change for her Upper East
Side constituents, who will remain
within her district.
For Maloney, who has narrowly
fought off insurgent candidate Suraj
Patel for two election cycles and is facing
another primary challenge over the
summer, the outer borough changes to
the map are bound to be welcome news.
The New York Times previously reported
that Maloney had pushed Democrats
in the state Legislature to cut down on
the progressive parts of her district in
Brooklyn and Queens, where Patel won
more of the vote in 2020.
The new maps do just that, lopping
off large chunks of Sunnyside and eastern
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (inset) stands to gain votes in her redrawn
12th Congressional District, as proposed by Democrats in the state
legislature. The plan could be approved on Feb. 3.
Long Island City and Astoria — a
hub of the progressive energy over the
past four years.
In its current iteration, the border
between Nadler’s district and Maloney’s
extends south from Central Park
to west of 8th Avenue, to East 14th
Street, where Nadler’s district cuts east
to encompass the West Village and
parts of Soho. In the new maps, the
border between the two districts will
move west a block to 9th Avenue along
Hell’s Kitchen, and Nadler will lose
most of Greenwich Village and Soho.
Residents in the Manhattan areas
that are shifting from Nadler to Maloney
showed resistance for insurgent
candidates in 2020, when Nadler
faced multiple progressive challengers,
and came out on top in most of his
Manhattan territory.
In its current form, Nadler’s district
snakes down into Brooklyn through
the Hudson River to spread over a
large block of Borough Park. The district
will now take a different, torturously
skinny route through Red Hook
and Downtown Brooklyn to Borough
Park and extend farther south
in Bensonhurst.
Like Maloney, Nadler performed
PHOTO VIA REUTERS/MAP COURTESY OF LATFOR
worse in the 2020 primary in the outer
borough sections of his district than
Manhattan, but the turnout was signifi
cantly lower per capita in Brooklyn.
He wound up getting over 65 percent
of the vote across the district — a
comfortable margin of victory. The reduction
of the Manhattan parts of his
district might give a slight boost to an
insurgent challenger, but it is still likely
to be an uphill battle.
The changes to the other two
Manhattan representatives are less
notable. The northern Manhattan
sections of Congressman Adriano
Espaillat’s 13th District, which runs
from Harlem up to Inwood, would not
signifi cantly change.
The slim Manhattan section of Congresswoman
Nydia Velázquez’s 11th
District will slide northeast, but the
majority of her district is in Brooklyn
and Queens. Sections of Chinatown
and Two Bridges that are represented
by Velázquez at the moment will shift
into Nadler’s district.
Accordingly Velázquez’s district will
expand up absorbing sections of Lower
East Side and Alphabet City around
Tompkins Square Park that now fall
under Maloney’s district.
8 February 3, 2022 Schneps Media