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Winner of New York Congressional District Pitting Nearly 30-Year Incumbents Against Each Other Revealed

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  August 23, 2022 10:10 PM

New York State held its congressional primaries on Tuesday evening, the culmination of a harried process of redrawn maps, court cases, and races with long-time incumbents being pitted against each other. This included Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, who both were vying to represent the state's newly drawn 12th Congressional District. 

Decision Desk HQ called the race for Nadler at 9:33pm, whom polls had predicted would emerge victorious. With an estimated 96 percent of the vote in, Nadler looks to be winning by more than 30 points, with 55.75 percent to Maloney's 24.18 percent. 

Rep. Nadler currently represents the state's 10th Congressional District, while Maloney represents New York's 12th Congressional District as it stands before redistricting for the midterms. Both have been in Congress since 1993, and both chair House committees, with Rep. Nadler serving as the House Judiciary Committee chairman and Rep. Maloney serving as the chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. 

Rep. Maloney had run into trouble during the last month of the campaign, as she continuously flip flopped on whether or not she thought President Joe Biden was running for and should run for re-election. 

The state also held primaries in June, though not for congressional seats. These primaries are a result of state Democrats drawing up gerrymandered maps that were struck down by the courts as unconstitutional as a result of lawsuits. With its high population loss, New York, which still remains one of the most populated states, lost a congressional seat as a result of the 2020 census. 

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The redistricting process also created a bad look for Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who, in addition to currently representing the state's 18th Congressional District, serves as the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). His decision to immediately jump to declare he was running in the state's newly created 17th Congressional District, raised some eyebrows and drew criticism. 

A May report from The New York Times highlighted as much:

Just 25 minutes after the maps’ release, Mr. Maloney announced on Twitter that he would leave behind the bulk of his traditional Hudson Valley seat and run instead for a newly drawn 17th Congressional District rooted in Westchester County. Mr. Maloney lives within the new lines, which happen to offer a safer path for a Democrat than the district he currently represents.

What might have seemed like an easy political decision for Mr. Maloney, however, has quickly turned into a political firestorm, replete with racial overtones, off-the-record recriminations and rare breaches of congressional decorum between staff of neighboring colleagues

Some Democrats saw the maneuver as an attempt to box out Representative Mondaire Jones, a first-term congressman who represents the vast majority of the district’s population, and force him to enter a primary against Jamaal Bowman, a fellow Black progressive, in the neighboring 16th District. Mr. Jones made no secret of his own feelings, though he has yet to say which Democrat he will challenge.

“Sean Patrick Maloney did not even give me a heads-up before he went on Twitter to make that announcement,” Mr. Jones tersely told Politico on Monday. “And I think that tells you everything you need to know about Sean Patrick Maloney.”

In a rare break from Congress’s genteel protocols, Mr. Jones’s chief of staff even shared a screenshot of an exchange with Mr. Maloney’s top aide, and accused the chairman of prioritizing his personal interests “rather than working to unravel this gerrymander” by the courts.

Rep. Maloney currently has a commanding leading over Alessandra Biaggi, with 63.6 percent of the vote to her 36.4 percent, though these are the results with just 15 percent of the vote having come in.