Amid a presidential loss and hand-wringing over the wreckage, congressional gains for Democrats in New York state are one of the small bright spots shining out from the party’s bleak results.
The Democratic Party lost five competitive House races in this blue state two years ago — the exact margin by which they lost the House majority. Now, three of those districts are back in Democratic hands (plus a fourth Democrats claimed in an early 2024 special election), even as Vice President Kamala Harris underperformed her former running mate, President Joe Biden, in the state.
New York’s unlikely battleground state status might inform Democrats’ path forward, including the receipts from early investment and sustained organizing on the ground, as well as candidates who ran ahead of the national ticket and who weren’t afraid to buck the national party line.
One key ingredient isn’t available everywhere: Democrats redrew the state political maps early this year, though that move gave some Democrats heartburn at the time. Still, Democratic winners and leaders from the state still see broader lessons.
“In places that Gov. Hochul lost by a lot, or that Vice President Harris lost by a lot, we either won or lost by less,” Rep.-elect Josh Riley told NBC News days after he flipped New York’s upstate 19th Congressional District. “And I think that’s because — I like to think anyway — that that’s because my approach to this hasn’t been around partisanship and political parties. It’s really focused on the concerns folks have when they’re sitting down at the kitchen table.”
In Riley’s district, a win meant earning the backing of Republicans and Democrats alike. Biden carried the district by 4 points in 2020, and preliminary data suggests the presidential split was much closer this time.
“We should be respectful enough of people to see what they see with their own eyes,” Riley said of the conversations he had in his district. “We’ve had a lot of Democrats running around saying ‘the economy is good,’ and then I go and talk to a young family who’s telling me they had to cut back on their grocery bill because the rent is too damn high. I think it’s just having a dose of reality of what folks are dealing with.”
It’s also a matter of having the resources to get that message across.
In the aftermath of 2022, three top New York Democrats — Gov. Kathy Hochul, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — joined together via a coordinated committee that allowed them to pool cash and staff resources through the state party to support downballot candidates. The three leaders built a political apparatus that boasted 38 offices across seven competitive districts and just shy of 100 full-time staff. By Election Day, the coordinated campaign had engaged over 23,000 volunteers, knocked more than 1 million doors, and made 5 million phone calls, according to the group, capping off an “unprecedented” effort in the state.
“New York recognized very early on that we had become a battleground state and we needed a battleground operation,” a source directly familiar with the coordinated campaign told NBC News, speaking anonymously to give a more candid assessment.
Organizers drew inspiration from other states, like Wisconsin, that had recalibrated in the face of past electoral defeats. But staffers also challenged themselves to get creative, too, like providing organizers with wagons full of Diet Coke to pull around the Syracuse University — a notorious “Pepsi campus” where Coke is hard to come by — leading up to Election Day, giving would-be voters a dose of caffeine along with voting location information.
The source directly familiar with the coordinated campaign saw New York as a place “that has actually gone against the narrative” in 2024, at least at the House level.
“It was a Trump wave on top,” this person said, “but that couldn’t save incumbent House Republicans in part because I think we had built a sophisticated voter contact operation across all of these districts” and because candidates “understood the nature of their districts.”
Still, a Republican strategist who worked on the New York races was quick to remind that it wasn’t a clean sweep of competitive seats for Democrats, who weren’t able to flip the 1st or 17th districts. “Clearly they though there was more ground than there was,” the strategist said while predicting continued fluctuations in New York.
“We’re going to be looking at an overarching realignment that started in earnest in 2022, and I don’t think it’s over yet,” the strategist said, noting Trump’s gains with voters of color and other voter groups in and around New York City.
In the lead-up to Election Day, Republicans were keen to stoke concerns about Harris’ negative effect on vulnerable downballot Democrats. Internal polling from the House GOP campaign arm across the seven competitive House districts showed Harris trailing Biden’s margins – and even giving Trump an edge. Ultimately, while Biden carried New York by 23 points in 2020, Harris’ margin was nearly halved.
“I think [Harris] was helpful as compared to where we would have otherwise been, just because of how weakened Biden had been in the public eye,” the source said, saying Harris energized the base. “We needed an energized base and then our candidates could go out there and persuade voters that they were the right candidates to defeat these [GOP] incumbents.”
Riley, one of the candidates able to do just that, says it isn’t as complicated as some are making it out to be.
“If all you did was talk to quote-unquote political experts and pundits, you’d think there’s some mystery to be solved here,” he said. “But if you spent a day talking to people on Birdsall Street, they’re going to tell you they’re angry that our immigration system is broken. And they’re even angrier that politicians aren’t being straight with them about it.”
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