After over a year in court, millions of dollars on lawyers’ fees, an overhaul of the state’s highest court and an all-out battle to throw out New York’s congressional districts and replace them with something more favorable for Democrats, the New York senate, empowered with the ability to flip control of the House singlehandedly, voted to confirm new maps, signed by the governor into law. The result: The number of Trump-won districts in the state has officially increased from five to six.

Read that again. Not a typo! The most anticipated Democratic gerrymander of the 2024 election cycle has resulted with Democrats—wielding supermajority control of the legislature and a newly enshrined liberal majority on the state’s highest court—actually increasing the number of congressional districts in areas won by a Republican in 2020. They made swing districts like NY-01 even redder, likely putting them out of reach for Democrats (swingy NY-19, too, is ever so slightly redder than before). The new map is barely distinguishable from the 2022 map that contributed to New York Democrats’ disastrous midterms performance and gave the Republicans the House majority.

Democrats managed to make two districts meaningfully bluer: NY-03, which Democrat Tom Suozzi already won handily just a few weeks ago, and NY-22, which was won by Republican Brandon Williams by less than a point. Williams was already the most vulnerable Republican on the map; these changes don’t change the likely outcomes of these races at all.

Still, politics watchers guessed a redraw could net Dems as many as five seats in November; now they expect Dems to add half of one. Congressional Republicans can barely contain their glee.

How did we get here? In early 2022, the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission deadlocked, unable to agree on nonpartisan congressional maps. So the commission sent two separate mockups to the legislature, which voted both down; the IRC then missed a deadline to fix them. The Democratic-controlled legislature then drew up its own version, which Republicans hated, and the court’s........

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