The Point: In Biden vs. Trump, how do the NY election districts trend?
The redrawn 1st Congressional District would lean toward President Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump. Credit: POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Drew Angerer
To get a better sense of how the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts are set to change on Long Island, The Point turned to Steven Romalewski of the Mapping Service at CUNY Graduate Center, whose cartography has been devoured by NY political junkies in recent days.
Romalewski crunched the numbers to find turnout by town during the 2020 presidential general election, in both the current and proposed districts.
The big partisan shifts are obvious: CD1 would go from a district where only 47.9% voted for Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump, to one where 55.5% did. That’s a sizable 7.6 percentage point Democratic gain.
And CD2 would shift red, with Biden’s share against Trump going from 48% to just under 43%. That’s a more than 5 percentage point GOP gain.
But for those hoping to forecast party primaries, the town data is more intriguing.
Take CD1: Brookhaven, which is Kara Hahn’s home turf and where she and Bridget Fleming have already been doing ground-level battle over endorsements, will still be the largest turnout chunk of the district. But a big piece of the town would be carved out of the district, so the part that remains would generate less than half the number of votes.
Babylon would be the town with the next biggest turnout chunk of CD1. It’s also the home of town Councilwoman Jackie Gordon who had been expecting to run a rematch in CD2, but could instead try her luck in the nationally watched pickup opportunity of CD1.
And across the border in CD2, the town numbers show where the district is getting redder — perhaps pertinent information for potential primaries either this cycle or in years to come. The all-new Brookhaven portion of the district would be the biggest chunk of town in the district, with 2020 Trump plus Biden turnout of 128,773. That chunk went 55% for Trump. Another new section is a small piece of also-hot-red Smithtown. Trump’s share of that portion was 57%.
Mark Chiusano is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
