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NY To Lose 1 Seat In Congress After New Census

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By the slimmest of margins, just 89 fewer people, New York will slip from 27 to 26 congressional districts after next year’s elections, now that the2020 census figures show the state’s population is not growing as fast as most other states.

The data released Monday showed New York had a total of 20,215,751 residents in 2020, up from 2010, but most other states grew faster.

The slower population gains in the upstate regions west of Albany will likely result in one fewer seat there. Democrats control the governor’s seat and hold a supermajority in both houses of the State Legislature. They appoint the members of the state’s redistricting commission, which draws the new lines.

Blair Horner with the New York Public Interest Research Group said it’s likely that four upstate Republican seats could be consolidated into just three that favor GOP voters.

“Supermajorities in both houses is obviously a bad omen for Republican members of the House of Representatives,” Horner said.

A likely choice for redrawing is the district now held by Rep. Tom Reed, a Corning Republican. Reed, facing sexual harassment allegations, has announced he’s not seeking reelection, so the seat will be open in the November 2022 elections.

Horner says the Democratic supermajority control of both houses of the state Legislature is also likely bad news for Republicans in the state Senate. The GOP is the minority party in both houses, but in the Senate, Republicans still hold several key seats where the population is growing the slowest.

“Population losses are really in the upstate area,” Horner said. “Pretty much west of the Hudson Valley and north of the Hudson Valley. And those are areas where the Republicans have the strongholds that they have in New York.”

The chair of the state’s Republican Party, Nick Langworthy, in a statement, blamed the population shift on what he says is the “failed leadership” of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who's been in office for 10 years.  

The redistricting commission won’t receive the more detailed block-by-block population data until late September. It will have to have the new districts completed before petitioning begins in February for the June 2022 primaries.

Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut will retain their Congressional seats, while Pennsylvania will lose one representative according to the census data.

Karen DeWitt is Capitol Bureau chief for New York State Public Radio, a network of public radio stations in New York state. She has covered state government and politics for the network since 1990.
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