On Tuesday, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-Hamburg) told reporters she remains open to a constitutional amendment to redraw New York’s congressional districts as soon as 2028, despite massive wins for her party across the country last week.
Hochul, last year, made New York one of the first states to respond in kind to the GOP-led mid-decade redistricting “arms race” that ended up massively backfiring on Republicans on Election Day. Hochul responded immediately after Texas Republicans began their map-making process.
In June, the State Legislature gave their first approval to a constitutional amendment to remove a prohibition on gerrymandering and make it much easier for the Democratic trifecta in Albany to pass maps themselves, effectively bypassing the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) instituted by ballot measure in 2014.
In March, the Supreme Court had halted a court order to require a redraw of NY-11, a solid-red, Staten Island-based district on the grounds the district disenfranchised black and Hispanic voters. That redraw never occurred and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R) was re-elected last Tuesday.
Hochul, however, hasn’t taken a firebrand position to keep the charge into this process.
“Those newly-drawn lines [in other states] are still there,” said Hochul, according to Gothamist. “And while it didn’t have an effect on this year’s election, there’s always another election every two years. You can’t assume that there’s going to be the same outcome every two years, and so I want to look at it long-term.”
Hochul has also acknowledged that the political landscape has changed since the mid-decade redistricting ploy began last May.
“I’m going to take that into account,” said Hochul, adding she will mull it over with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Prospect Heights), who is reportedly a favorite to become the next Speaker of the House. “I’m going to talk to the two State legislative leaders about where we want to go with this.”
Congressman Joe Morelle (D-Irondequoit), who has worked lock-step with Leader Jeffries to see New York’s redistricting process go through, told Politico that he will urge the State Legislature to move forward with the amendment.
Democrats will enter Albany in January with a supermajority in both chambers. Constitutional amendments, regardless of their content, must pass two consecutive sessions of the State Legislature to be approved for the voters’ ballots. Since Democrats already passed the first round in June, it is highly likely the amendment will pass in the upcoming session, unless Hochul flexes executive power to derail it. If it passes in 2027, the measure will be ballot-ready for November 2027. If voters approve it then, it will take effect on January 1, 2028, and Democrats will be able to gerrymander the Empire State’s congressional districts.
The calculus for Democrats is whether the amendment will pass, as New York voters have resoundingly approved anti-gerrymandering and fair map-making amendments in recent years. Since New York moved local, odd-numbered year elections to even-numbered years, the question of turnout might significantly hurt or aid this movement.
If Democrats do redraw the map, that map will only be live for the 2028 and 2030 elections. In 2031, the regular decennial redraw will take place and current projections show New York losing more political clout on the Hill as the population continues to dwindle.
After Tuesday’s elections, Democrats will have a 20-6 majority in the state’s congressional delegation, up from their 15-11 split in 2022.
Three Cycles, Two Maps
In 2022, when the State’s IRC deadlocked on two map proposals, the State Legislature took over the process. The resulting “Hochul-mander” was panned as one of the most aggressive gerrymanders in the country. The prime example was NY-03, currently a northern Nassau-Queens seat, which was drawn to extend from northern Smithtown all the way to Westchester’s border with the Long Island Sound.
Albany Democrats’ plan for NY-01 was to retain the five East End towns and the north shore of Brookhaven and bisect Smithtown on its way to take in the bluest parts of the towns of Islip and Babylon.
The entire map favored Democrats in 22 of 26 districts, well above the 19D-8R split as of the 2020 elections.
The gerrymander was ruled unconstitutional, kicking the process to a special master to draw the congressional map. That one used in the 2022 elections was by many metrics one of the most balanced in the nation and allowed Republicans to flip four seats to claim the House majority that year.
Ahead of 2024, Democratic-aligned voters sued the IRC and alleged the court-ordered map was only temporary and should not stand for the entire decade. The IRC then overwhelmingly adopted a new map, but the Democratic Legislature rejected it, citing county splits and alleged incumbent protection.
The map produced for the 2024 elections and used in the 2026 midterms was moderately tweaked but did give Democrats narrow edges in places like Long Island and the Hudson Valley.
If Democrats see the current redistricting process through and voters approve of the referendum next year, it would make for the third congressional map the state has used this decade.
In Response to Other States
The current round of redistricting started in response to the Republican-led effort in Texas. Maps were successfully redrawn ahead of the 2026 midterms by Republicans in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Their map in Missouri was struck down before the elections.
Republicans also redrew maps in Alabama, Louisiana, and Ohio based on court orders.
The Democrats gerrymandered California under Proposition 50, which passed at the ballot box in 2025. A court-ordered redraw of the Utah map allowed Democrats to easily pick up one seat last Tuesday. Their gerrymander of Virginia, which was also approved by voters in 2025, did not survive judicial scrutiny. Republicans in New Hampshire faced brief pressure to redistrict but ultimately made no effort.
Voluntary plans to redraw in Indiana, Kansas, and South Carolina were rejected by state Republicans, with the process being especially contentious in Indiana. Republican members of the Indiana Legislature who did not cosign the redraw found themselves intimidated through “swatting” and 5 of the 7 legislators lost their primaries over the summer.
Republicans were sued in Arkansas and Wisconsin to no avail.
Democrats in Illinois refused to gerrymander unless Indiana Republicans acted first, while massive intraparty fighting was seen in Maryland, where no redraw took place. New Jersey Democrats said redistricting was not a priority and any redraws could happen after the 2026 midterms.
Finally, Democrats in Washington state relented on their attempt due to lacking supermajorities in both legislative chambers. Shasti Conrad, Chair of the Washington Democratic Party, said the prospect could be reopened after the midterms. Democrats secured a supermajority in the Washington State Senate for the first time in 1948, but came up just one seat short of a supermajority in the State House.
Overall, the 2026 midterms saw 9 states implement new maps in time for Election Day. That total would have been 11 states had the Missouri and Virginia maps not been struck down by the courts. Including New York, 8 other states at least briefly flirted with the idea, while litigation failed in two others. That brings the 2026 total to 21 states involved in the effort to varying degrees.
Republicans’ attempts largely backfired based on last Tuesday’s results. They expected a net gain of 9 seats from redrawing – 14 total, with 5 lost to Democrats’ maps in California and Utah. Of those 14 seats, they flipped 2. Instead, Democrats made a net gain of 14 seats by picking up seats Republicans made less red overall to spread their perceived electoral clout to bluer turf. The initiative spectacularly backfired in North Carolina. The GOP expected to net one seat; instead, the Democrats net 5, with a net gain of 7 possible once all votes are counted.
The North Carolina map is being hailed a “dummy-mander” for that result.
