Redrawn NY Congressional Map Approved, Tenney Won’t Run in Broome

Candidates for U.S. Congress in New York now know if some of their campaign money was wasted trying to woo residents that don’t live in their districts.

A Steuben County Judge has approved the new district maps redrawn by an appointed “Master” to reflect population changes under the 2020 census and replace the maps approved by the Democrat-controlled legislature that gave advantage to Democratic candidates.

The entire eastern Southern Tier from the Tioga County/Chemung County line east to Massachusetts now falls under the 19^th district.

The redrawn map presented last week got a public airing through submitted comments but no formal hearing before the deadline to have the boundaries adopted on Friday, May 20.  Over 3,000 comments were sent to Judge Patrick McAllister. The new map presented last week was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul.

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With Broome, Tioga, Chenango, Delaware, Cortland, Greene, Columbia and Tompkins Counties all falling in the new 19^th Congressional District, the Republican who won the hard-fought race for the 22^nd Congressional District in the last election says she is not going to seek to represent Binghamton, Owego, Norwich and Cortland this year.

In an early morning news release May 23, Claudia Tenney announced her campaign for the 24^th district.  The Utica-area Republican in her announcement touted support from former President Donald Trump and fellow conservatives as she campaigns to represent Oswego County and portions of the Finger Lakes and Western New York.

Tenney narrowly defeated Democrat Anthony Brindisi in a post-election vote count that dragged on for months.

The statement from her office said:

“Tenney has deep roots in New York’s 24^th Congressional District. She has represented portions of NY-24 starting in 2011 and previously lived in Ontario County. Under the new redistricting maps, 30% of NY-24 falls within the Syracuse Media Market where Tenney has extraordinarily high name ID among voters.” 

The statement says Tenney has $1.4 million dollars in her campaign war chest.

Another one of the candidates finding a shift in his district is Democrat Max Della Pia of Owego.  The Elmira-Star Gazette reports party officials in the 23^rd Congressional District represented by Republican Tom Reed, who suddenly resigned last week, picked Della Pia to run in a special election to fill out the remaining few months in Reed's term.  That election date, to be set by Governor Kathy Hochul, is expected to be in August.  To run for a full term, Della Pia would now live outside that district as Owego falls in the new 19^th district.

Due to the redistricting debacle, New York’s congressional and state Senate primary has been pushed back to August 23 to give candidates time to regroup and refocus their campaigns on the new makeup of the districts while the gubernatorial and Assembly primary will still be held June 28.