Andrew: All right, so you reported this week about voters from Manhattan and Staten Island filing a lawsuit Monday that could have big implications for races for Congress. They are challenging district boundaries. Bring us up to speed here.
Jimmy: So the voters, some of whom are Black and Hispanic, they say that they're marginalized by the current district lines. So Staten Island is right now joined with Southern Brooklyn, and it's kind of thought of as a Republican district. Nicole Malliotakis represents it, and these voters argue that because generally white communities are kind of united together in this district, they are disenfranchised. So they're suing under the state's Voting Rights Act to say that the lines should be drawn in a way where people who are not white have more of a voice in their pick for Congress. So the significance of this is actually not about the merits of that dispute. It's that if this lawsuit succeeds, it would have big implications, because New York could end up drawing new Congressional maps in the next few years, and that could, in turn, help one political party, namely the Democrats who control all the levers of state government.
Andrew: And just remind us why we're talking about redistricting now. It's something that's done every 10 years. New York just went through this process.
Jimmy: Exactly right. It happened after a new census that came out in 2022 but what's happening now is that several red states have redrawn their lines to help Republicans. So Democratic states are doing exactly the same thing, and it's a classic arms race, tit for tat. And Democrats in New York, like Governor [Kathy] Hochul say that they want to get involved. They want to fight fire with fire. And, of course, Andrew, the big stakes here are that the House of Representatives is very, very closely controlled between Republicans and Democrats. The elections of 2026 are going to be very hard fought, and really this is kind of a game of inches, so anything that can give you a boost is worth doing, according to members of both political parties. New York hadn't been part of this conversation because our State Constitution prohibits mid-decade redistricting, but if the maps were thrown out, then they could draw a new one. Some Democrats, like I said, Governor Hochul is pushing for that. Another one is State Senator Mike Gianaris from Queens.
Gianaris: "But we obviously have to get engaged and not sit on the sidelines while red states are bastardizing the makeup of Congress."
Jimmy: So Gianaris also supports changing the State Constitution, which would explicitly allow for mid-decade redistricting.
Andrew: So is it going to happen? And when?
Jimmy: Well, that's really hard to say. You know, when I talked about this, at first, I think I said the word "could" about five times, because there's a lot of things that need to happen to get new maps in place. You know, amending the [State] Constitution is cumbersome. It takes usually two or three years. It would also require a statewide referendum. So the earliest that could happen is 2027. Plus, you can expect Republicans to argue hard against this lawsuit and against any changes. You know, these current districts, which have yielded GOP representatives in seven of New York's 26 seats in the House, were drawn under the supervision of a judge, so they're considered to be kind of independently authored. John Faso is a Republican who served in Congress. He tends to argue for these things on the Republican side, and he says he thinks it'll be very hard for people to convince a judge to throw out the current map.
Faso: "I think the courts will look very dubiously on this litigation."
Jimmy: Faso and other Republicans called the lawsuit frivolous and politically motivated.
Andrew: We'll have to see if this one goes through the courts. And of course, we're talking about Congress in the 2026 election. But we have an election that's now just, you know, a few days away here. Hundreds of thousands of people, in fact, have already voted in early voting. And of course, as we've talked about, the big contest that a lot of people are watching is the New York City mayoral race. Take us up to speed in the home stretch.
Jimmy: Seems like former Governor Andrew Cuomo has got some momentum.
Andrew: Okay, interesting.
Jimmy: Yeah. So we'll see if it's going to be enough. There have been a few polls released this week. All of them show that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani maintains in the lead by double digits. And so what we also saw, though, is in the early voting, older voters, the boomers, the Gen Xers, who I guess we're now calling older, have been coming out more heavily in the early voting than happened in the primary election. Remember that back in June, the crowd that was younger new voters, younger voters, they were over represented in the early tallies, and we know that the younger voters are tending to break for Zohran Mamdani. But the older voters are tending to break against him. So you know all of this is giving Cuomo reason to feel bullish. There are some big dollar donations that are starting to pour into his super PACs, including another $1.5 million that former mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg seemed to have in his couch cushions or something like that, right?
Andrew: Okay, so seems to be good news, maybe for Cuomo. What about Mamdani?Where does his campaign stand here?
Jimmy: Well, he's the front runner, so it's a classic to use, the sports metaphor. He's just trying to run out the clock. Yeah, you know, it's the it's the argument. What do you call the guy who got elected with 51% versus 60%? You call him mayor. So he only has to win by a vote, and he held a big rally over the weekend with supporters arguing, this is our time, continuing to reinforce his message. Actually, one of the moments that actually stood out to me from that rally came when Governor Kathy Hochul took the stage. You know, she's a more moderate Democrat than Mamdani, and we've talked about how her endorsement of his campaign is something that I think could help her as she runs for reelection next year. But when she took the stage, the crowd started chanting.
"So here's what we're gonna do. Well, this crowd is fired up. All right, I can hear you."
Jimmy: So it was, it was a little awkward. You know, Hochul has said she doesn't want to tax the rich, and we'll have to see how this plays out. Republicans, of course, use this as an excuse to tie Hochul and Mamdani together, right? If there's a benefit for Hochul with progressives, there's a potential cost with moderates and some conservative Democrats and independents. And you know, Representative Elise Stefanik, who's a likely challenger in 2026 for the Republican Party, said that the way Hochul placated the crowd shows that she's flip-flopped in her stance on income taxes.
Andrew: And then, speaking of Stefanik, she was out with news this week that she has written a book called "Poisoned Ivies." I think you got to give her the title, and it's going to look at Stefanik's tough questioning of the presidents of elite universities. It's due out in April.
Jimmy: That's right, and I will read it like I read all the books that politicians write, good for me. So to me, this is a sign that Stefanik has her eyes on a bigger stage. Politicians don't write books because they have some deep-seated literary desire. They do it to introduce themselves to a broader audience. So I think that this will be informative if Stefanik runs for governor, because it will show us how she wants to present herself. It will be an example of the narrative that she's trying to tell, perhaps as her campaign, if she launches one, is starting to get underway.
Andrew: Okay, we look forward to your full book report once that comes out in April, but that'll do it for now. That's Jimmy Veilkind of the New York Public News Network. Thanks, as always, for coming in.
Jimmy: Thanks, Andrew, always a pleasure to be with you and your listeners.
