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    Democrat Pat Ryan Wins in House Race That Turned on Abortion

    HUDSON, N.Y. — Pat Ryan, a Democratic county executive in New York’s Hudson Valley, has won a special House election on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, in a contest that was seen as a potential test of the impact that the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion might have on the midterm elections.The result in the closely watched race, which was considered a tossup, will keep the swing-district seat, formerly held by Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, under Democratic control.Mr. Ryan was able to keep his early lead, ultimately winning 52 percent of the vote to his Republican opponent Marc Molinaro’s 48 percent, with nearly 95 percent of votes cast.Mr. Ryan sought to highlight abortion as the predominant issue in his campaign and contrast his support for protecting abortion access nationwide with the position of Mr. Molinaro, who believes that the decision ought to rest with states.In speeches and campaign ads, Mr. Ryan, the Ulster County executive and a combat veteran, urged voters in the 19th District to see the election as a crucial opportunity to send a message decrying attacks on abortion access, voting rights and, more broadly, democratic principles.“Choice was on the ballot. Freedom was on the ballot, and tonight choice and freedom won,” Mr. Ryan said on Twitter early Wednesday. “We voted like our democracy was on the line because it is.”Though polls show that a majority of voters support some access to abortion, Democrats have been wrestling with how best to translate that into support for the party.Mr. Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive, largely avoided the topic of abortion, focusing instead on day-to-day voter anxieties, from crime and inflation to the price of baby formula.Marc Molinaro lost the race on Tuesday, but will be running again to win a full term in November.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesIn addressing his supporters late Tuesday evening, Mr. Molinaro refused to concede. “Whether it’s tonight or it’s Nov. 8, we are going to win the 19th Congressional District and give voice to people who are working too damn hard and getting too little in return.”Mr. Ryan now heads to Washington to serve out the remaining four months of Mr. Delgado’s term. It was his second bid for Congress: He ran in 2018 against Mr. Delgado, coming in second in a crowded primary.In the final days of the race, the Democrat’s campaign received a boost from party leaders including Mr. Delgado and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who appeared with Mr. Ryan at a rally in Kingston, and he benefited from a vigorous get-out-the-vote campaign that included calls, letters and postcards.Mr. Ryan will be seeking a full term in Congress in November, but — in a confusing redistricting-year twist — it will not be in the 19th District. His home lies within the new boundaries of the 18th District, where he is running in November. His Republican opponent in that race will be Assemblyman Colin Schmitt of New Windsor.Despite Mr. Molinaro’s loss in the 19th District, he, too, will be seeking a full term in Congress in November — in the district’s new contours. More

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    Nadler Routs Maloney in Marquee Showdown of Bruising New York Primaries

    Representative Jerrold Nadler, the influential chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, handily defeated his longtime congressional neighbor, Carolyn B. Maloney, in a bruising three-way primary battle on Tuesday that was preordained to end one of the powerful Democrats’ political careers.The star-crossed skirmish in the heart of Manhattan was unlike any New York City — or the Democratic Party writ large — had seen in recent memory. Though few ideological differences were at stake, it pitted two committee chairs who have served side by side in Washington since the 1990s against each other, and cleaved party faithful into rival factions.Allies had tried to pull Mr. Nadler off the collision course into a neighboring race after the state’s calamitous redistricting process unexpectedly combined their West and East Side districts this spring. But he pushed forward, relying in a lightning-fast campaign on his reputation as an old-school progressive and leading foil to Donald J. Trump to win over voters in one of the nation’s most liberal districts.“Here’s the thing: I’m a New Yorker, just like Bella Abzug, Ted Weiss and Bill Fitts Ryan,” Mr. Nadler, 75, told supporters after his victory, referencing liberal lions who represented New York in Congress. “We New Yorkers just don’t know how to surrender.”Mr. Nadler, in thanking Ms. Maloney, said that the two had “spent much of our adult life working together to better New York and our nation.”He won the contest for New York’s redrawn 12th District with 56 percent of the vote, compared with Ms. Maloney’s 24 percent, with 93 percent of votes counted. A third candidate, Suraj Patel, earned 19 percent, siphoning crucial votes away from Ms. Maloney, whom he nearly beat two years ago.It all but assures Mr. Nadler a 16th full term in Congress and Ms. Maloney’s political retirement.The race — which ended in underhanded jabs about Mr. Nadler’s mental and physical fitness — was the highlight of a string of ugly primary contests that played out across the state on Tuesday, from Long Island to Buffalo, as Democrats and Republicans each fought over rival personalities and the ideological direction of their parties.In another of the most closely watched contests, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the moderate lawmaker tasked with protecting Democrats’ narrow House majority, easily fended off a challenge from Alessandra Biaggi, a state senator and a rising star of New York’s left wing.The race in the lower Hudson Valley had become an ideological proxy fight, and Ms. Biaggi’s defeat was the latest high-profile setback for leftists in New York. The former President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Mr. Maloney, while Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly backed Ms. Biaggi.“Tonight, mainstream won,” Mr. Maloney said in his victory speech. He will face Mike Lawler, a Republican assemblyman, in what may be a competitive general election.Outside Buffalo, Carl Paladino, a businessman known for his explosive, sometimes racist remarks, was leading a Republican primary against Nick Langworthy, the state Republican chairman who entered the race because he feared that Mr. Paladino could harm the party’s statewide ticket in November.A 13-candidate Democratic primary in the new 10th District connecting Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan remained too close to call, as Daniel S. Goldman held a narrow lead. The results were similarly close in a special election for a Hudson Valley swing seat, vacated by Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, that could offer a preview of the general election.The primary contests were particularly painful for Democrats, who entered the election cycle optimistic that the decennial redistricting process in blue New York would yield crucial pickup opportunities to protect their loose grip on the House of Representatives this fall.Instead, the state’s highest court ruled this spring that the Democrats’ congressional map was unconstitutional and put in place a neutral alternative. It set off anguishing intraparty brawls that have drained millions of dollars that party leaders had hoped would go toward defeating Republicans and will now cost the state Ms. Maloney’s important House Oversight and Reform Committee chairmanship in Washington. More

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    4 Summer Election Days? New York Faces Chaos in Voting Cycle.

    Representative Tom Reed is resigning, Representative Antonio Delgado is taking a new job, and New York’s redistricting process is up in the air, muddying the election schedule.To understand the chaos upending New York’s election season, consider the plight of Marc Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive trying to run for Congress as a Republican somewhere near his home in the Hudson Valley.Just two weeks ago, the state’s highest court unexpectedly invalidated the new congressional district in which Mr. Molinaro had spent months campaigning, throwing the battlefield into limbo as a special master redraws it and every other House seat in the state.Then last week, his likely Democratic opponent, Representative Antonio Delgado, took a job as New York’s lieutenant governor. The departure will prompt a special election this summer to fill the district whose current contours will be gone by January, just months before November’s election on lines that do not yet exist.“I’m a man in search of a horse,” Mr. Molinaro said in an interview on Wednesday. “I have no district, no opponent, and a million dollars.”With control of the House of Representatives on the line, no one expected this year’s redistricting cycle to be an afternoon by the Finger Lakes. But to a degree few foresaw, New York is lurching through what may be the most convoluted election cycle in living memory, scrambling political maps, campaigns and the calendar itself.It only got murkier this week, when Representative Tom Reed, a Republican from the Southern Tier of the state, announced that he would leave his seat earlier than expected to work for a Washington lobbying firm, setting up a second special congressional election this summer. (Mr. Reed decided not to seek re-election last year in the face of a groping allegation.)What’s left behind is a fog of confusion over when people are going to vote, who is running in which districts and when Gov. Kathy Hochul will schedule two special elections that could have an immediate impact on the narrowly divided House of Representatives in Washington.For now, neither Mr. Delgado nor Mr. Reed has officially resigned from their seats, according to the governor’s office.Representative Tom Reed, who said last year that he would not seek re-election, announced on Tuesday that he would resign.Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times“We are working with the lieutenant governor-designate’s team on the transition and have not yet received Congressman Reed’s resignation,” Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul, said on Wednesday. “But when we do, the governor will call a special election as required by law.”It is not implausible that New York could hold Election Days for statewide and Assembly primaries on June 28; for congressional and State Senate primaries on Aug. 23; and for the seats of Mr. Delgado and Mr. Reed on separate Tuesdays in August. (Republicans believe that Mr. Delgado may be delaying his House resignation so that his district’s special election can coincide with the Aug. 23 primaries in an effort to boost Democratic turnout.)What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.“I joked with our staff last night, maybe tomorrow the locusts will set in?” said Nick Langworthy, the state Republican Party chairman. “We just have so many catastrophes politically.”Some greater clarity may yet be on the horizon.The court-appointed special master is scheduled to unveil the new congressional and State Senate districts on Monday, and if they are approved by Patrick F. McAllister, a judge in Steuben County, candidates will be able to begin plotting summertime campaigns.On Wednesday, Judge McAllister, who is overseeing the redistricting case, shut the door on a related but belated attempt to strike down State Assembly districts. The judge also laid out the process by which candidates can qualify to run in the newly redrawn districts once they are unveiled.If Republicans tend to view the absurdities in a more humorous light than Democrats do, it is because each change has played out to their benefit.The lines passed by the Democrat-dominated Legislature in February, only to be struck down in late April by the New York State Court of Appeals, would have given Democrats a clear advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts. While the new lines remain a mystery, they are widely expected to create more swing seats that Republicans could conceivably win.The departure of Mr. Delgado in the 19th Congressional District was another unforeseen gift to the Republicans. While the exact shape of the new district will matter, Mr. Molinaro’s prospects will be enhanced by not having to run against a popular incumbent with a track record of winning tough races.The district, which includes all or parts of 11 counties, has been one of the state’s most competitive, with tight races in 2016 (a Republican win for John Faso), and in 2018, when Mr. Delgado won his first term. Mr. Delgado won by a more comfortable margin in 2020 against Kyle Van De Water, a Republican and former officer in the U.S. Army.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More