New York State’s new 19th Congressional District (see map below, borrowed from Julian Schreibman’s campaign site) is far more logical, and also more compact, than its predecessor, the 20th. There is no skinny finger extending up into the Adirondacks for no apparent reason (except to garner more Republican votes). Instead, the new district wraps around Albany to the north and encompasses the Catskills and the mid to upper Hudson Valley. It also extends west to the PA border and east to Connecticut and Massachusetts.
New York’s 19th Congressional District
NY-19, because it contains Kingston and all of Ulster County, should be friendlier to Democrats than the old 20th District that elected Chris Gibson. And because the district is less gerrymandered and more of a piece than the 20th, it has the potential to be more unified in general, and thus represents more promising ground for region-wide efforts—economic development and broadband initiatives, for example.
We’ll be looking at the Congressional candidates and the pros and cons of NY-19 in the weeks and months leading up to the election. Spoiler alert: for counties like Greene, that used to reside in the 20th, a Schreibman-Democratic victory would represent an empowering step forward.
