The Democratic Party has a truly pathetic record when it comes to the Staten Island congressional seat.
Since 1980, just two Democrats have held the seat here: Michael McMahon and Max Rose.
Each held the seat for a single, two-year term before being ousted by Republicans.
That’s 45 years of abject political failure.
So now the Democrats are trying to steal what they can’t win fair and square at the ballot box.
A judge has ruled that the current 11th Congressional District, which takes in Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, is unconstitutional.
Those who brought a lawsuit to redraw the district claim that the seat here underrepresents Black and Hispanic voters.
To overcome this inequality, Democrats say that the seat should be redrawn so that Staten Island shares the district with Manhattan communities like Battery Park City, the Financial District and the West Village.
Ah, yes. Those well-known hotbeds of diversity.
The whole situation reeks when you consider that the Dems have failed to win House elections here despite having a huge voter registration edge.
There are 198,183 registered Dems in the 11th District and 134,871 Republicans, according to the state Board of Elections.
So it’s not a matter of voter registration. It’s the fact that the Dems have overwhelmingly failed to make the sale with voters here.
Our registered Dems just aren’t voting the way state and national Dems want them to. And that makes the Dem powers-that-be sick to their stomachs.
So now they look to force a Democratic House member on us by making the seat even more favorable to the Dems.
The horrific Democratic track record in House races well predates Donald Trump, by the way.
Republican Guy Molinari flipped a reliably Democratic seat here red in the 1980 election and the GOP has rarely looked back since.
Electing Republicans to the House has generally been the decided will of generations of Staten Island voters. Through the presidencies of Republicans and Democrats. Under GOP and Democratic governors and mayors.
It’s that voter will that the Democrats are now looking to usurp. Because rigging the game is the only way they can win.
You want to change that dynamic, Dems? Make a better argument to voters.
Here’s how truly greedy and venal the Democrats are: the party controls 19 House seats in the state, while the Republicans have seven.
Just one of those seven, ours, is in New York City.
But that’s one too many for the Democratic Party. Never a discouraging word must be heard.
Talk about election interference.
This isn’t the first time that the Dems have tried to rig our seat.
The Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, with every judge appointed by a Democratic governor, slapped down an attempt to create a Dem-happy district here a few years ago.
How Dem-happy was it? Bill de Blasio thought about running for Congress from Staten Island.
But even those judges knew bald-faced, politically dishonest gerrymandering when they saw it. A new district was drawn that passed legal muster.
Until now.
Years ago, the Island shared a judicial district with Brooklyn and its overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.
That meant that Republicans had little hope of winning state Supreme Court races here even though borough voters at the same time regularly sent Republicans to Congress and to Borough Hall.
The game was rigged. And only the creation of a separate judicial district for the Island leveled the playing field here (much to the chagrin of Democrats, as it turned out).
Now the Dems want to turn back the clock so they can get their hands on a prize that they have found it nearly impossible to win on the merits.
Assemblyman Charles Fall, the borough Democratic Party chairman, said that the redistricting push isn’t about politics but constitutional principles.
Don’t make me laugh. That’s like a pro athlete saying that it’s not about the money.