Despite Republican gains nationwide, the Northeast will remain a Democratic stronghold in the new year. Members of Congress who survived the red wave are getting ready.
Perhaps no one had a better election night than Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who won a sixth term in New York’s 21st district. A loyal supporter of Donald Trump, she was chosen by the president-elect to be the next UN Ambassador just days later.
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats desperate for a silver lining were pointing to three House seat flips in New York. But even that wasn’t enough to take control of the House.
That means several members of Congress, including those who were hoping to make New York’s Hakeem Jeffries the first Black House speaker, will be on defense in the new term.
Massachusetts Congressman Richard Neal of the 1st House district has been in Congress since 1989. During Trump’s first term, Neal was Ways and Means Committee Chair and engaged in a years-long legal battle to access Trump’s tax returns. He expects a return to a volatile Washington D.C. in the new year.
“He’s very unpredictable. I think that if he embraces the same chaos that he did when he was elected president in 2016 for those four years, it’s going to be problematic for America and America’s role in the world,” he said. “I think that he has indicated he’s going to make dramatic changes with the military, he has suggested that he might jeopardize the independence of the Federal Reserve Board, I think that he has indicated that he’s going to have something close to an enemies list, and I think that that is not helpful to representative democracy.”
Neal and other Democrats spoke on WAMC’s Congressional Corner in the aftermath of the election, as they weighed where their party went wrong and contemplated at least two years when Republicans will control the Senate, House and White House.
“We are watching and witnessing, I think, a startling realignment of the political parties in America. That doesn’t mean that we can’t rescue it on the Democratic side, but I do think that we need to pay closer attention to many of those blue collar issues and understand that every answer is not just because one has a college degree,” Neal said.
New York Congressman Paul Tonko said Biden-era priorities like the CHIPS and Science Act are delivering billions of dollars for the Capital Region's high-tech sector — but voters had other concerns.
“Vice President Harris, who ran a strong campaign, a flawless campaign, in my opinion was the stronger pick to move our country forward and to continue our progress on the economy as it relates certainly to the 20th Congressional district,” he said.
One of those concerns was immigration, which Republicans successfully pushed as a key issue during the campaign. Trump has pledged to launch a nationwide roundup effort of undocumented immigrants once being sworn in January 20th. Immigration hardliner Stephen Miller was tapped for a West Wing policy role, and Tom Homan, who led Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the first Trump term, will be border czar.
Vermont Congresswoman-at-large Becca Balint, a Democrat who won a second term, says an immigration crackdown will have unintended consequences for the economy.
“Every single industry that I talk to said, the way in which we’ve approached this – and I say we as in, the last, I don’t know, 10 Congresses — we’ve known that this is a problem, so yeah, we gotta do the work,” Balint said. “But I don’t think spending kind of resources and time and energy rounding up people and also questioning birthright citizenship, that is not going to help our communities, that is not going to help our economy.”
Back in New York, the Empire State will be giving up some clout when Democrat Chuck Schumer relinquishes the Majority Leader role to John Thune of South Dakota.
But after decades in politics, outgoing Westchester County Executive George Latimer says there’s always a chance to focus on the next election. He too is starting over, as a 71-year-old freshman Democrat representing New York’s 16th House district.
“When you look at what the general circumstances were in a number of a states where we thought we would do worse, we wound up doing better than we thought. So there is a moment of assessment, there are things to be learned from this election, but I don’t think it’s a cause for a circular firing squad and undue angst. We have to recalibrate a message and make sure we’re reaching people where they are.”
The new Congress begins Jan. 3.
