{"id":128898,"date":"2026-02-10T16:23:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/128898\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T16:23:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:23:35","slug":"new-york-city-republicans-risk-losing-lone-gop-voice-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/128898\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City Republicans risk losing lone GOP voice in Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Staten Island stands apart from the rest of New York City in more ways than one. But its status as a Republican redoubt in a Democratic stronghold is under threat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Located on Staten Island\u2019s North Shore, the grocery store specializes in Sri Lankan, Indian, Filipino, Mexican and Middle Eastern foods. MUST CREDIT: Olga Ginzburg\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

In January, a state court judge ruled that New York\u2019s 11th Congressional District, which encompasses Staten Island and a wedge of southwestern Brooklyn, violates the voting rights of minorities who live within it, and must be redrawn.<\/p>\n

The judge had given a state panel, the Independent Redistricting Commission, until Feb. 6 to come up with a new map. But the process was paused after Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican who\u2019s held the seat since 2021, launched an effort to overturn the judge\u2019s order. A new deadline of Feb. 23 has been set for the judge to finalize the lines.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf the people of this district don\u2019t want me to represent them, they can vote me out in the election,\u201d Malliotakis said in an interview with Bloomberg News. She blamed the effort to revise her district\u2019s borders on political operatives in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn no way will we allow a Washington law firm to come along and dictate how this community is going to be represented,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Commuters arrive at the St. George Ferry Terminal in the Staten Island. MUST CREDIT: Olga Ginzburg\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

The battle on Staten Island is playing out amid a nationwide campaign to redraw political borders and gain a leg up in the 2026 midterm elections. So far, the parties have largely dueled to a draw. With Congress narrowly divided, control of the House could turn on a small number of skirmishes over district lines.<\/p>\n

Some Staten Islanders say the fight reflects deeper anxiety about how the borough is changing. Over the past 25 years, an influx of Latino and Asian residents have moved to the northern section of the island, drawn by the prospect of cheaper housing and a more suburban lifestyle. Meanwhile, its South Shore, with its more spacious homes and strong schools, has remained a Republican bastion.<\/p>\n

Paul Alexander Shali-Ogli, an activist and campaign consultant who resides on the island, said the shifting demographics have unsettled parts of its electorate. \u201cThere are a lot of people who are hopeful for the future,\u201d said Shali-Ogli. \u201cBut then there seem to be a minority who can\u2019t accept that the island has changed since the \u201870s, \u201880s and \u201890s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Joseph Pidoriano, a local entrepreneur, said reshaping the district would betray Staten Island\u2019s conservative character.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>An anti-ICE sign outside a store on the North Shore. MUST CREDIT: Olga Ginzburg\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to redraw the lines and make this district a destination where our values aren\u2019t represented,\u201d said Pidoriano. \u201cOur values are faith, family, freedom, leadership, and the ability to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malliotakis\u2019s district has been New York City\u2019s most durable Republican perch since the early 1980s, when the Staten Island-anchored seat, then numbered differently and once extending into Lower Manhattan, was redrawn to include a conservative-leaning sliver of Brooklyn. Only two Democrats \u2013 Michael McMahon in 2008 and Max Rose in 2018 \u2013 have won there since. Neither served more than one term.<\/p>\n

Malliotakis, whose mother left Cuba following the rise of Fidel Castro, said that hers is \u201cthe only competitive seat\u201d in New York City, and serves as a counterweight to Democratic dominance of local politics. Many Staten Island Republicans reject the idea that the district\u2019s Black and Latino voters have been disenfranchised.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absurd that a district that elects a Latina would somehow empower minorities by removing the more diverse portion of NY-11 in Brooklyn and replacing it with a lily white district in Lower Manhattan,\u201d said Joe Borelli, a former Republican city and state lawmaker for Staten Island who testified in the January court hearing.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Conservative Culture<\/p>\n

On the Staten Island Ferry, during the free, nearly 30-minute ride across New York Harbor, the Manhattan skyline recedes gradually. At the St. George Ferry Terminal, passengers step off the boat into a borough where most trips continue by car rather than subway, and where the pace and scale feel far removed from the rest of New York City.<\/p>\n

Staten Island\u2019s landscape looks less like Midtown than New Jersey, to which it is linked by three bridges. The island\u2019s quiet streets are lined by single-family homes in car-dependent, hilly neighborhoods, where a plethora of American flags snapped in gusting wind on a frigid February morning.<\/p>\n

Much of the borough\u2019s commercial activity runs along Hylan Boulevard, a stretch of set-back strip malls and residential areas running from Tottenville at the island\u2019s southern tip toward Fort Wadsworth, just across the water from Brooklyn on the island\u2019s northeast.<\/p>\n

For many commuters, getting to the city\u2019s major employment hubs means a drive on the Staten Island Expressway and over the towering Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, through traffic that island residents routinely rank among the worst in the city. Others rely on express buses that charge $7.25 each way.<\/p>\n

Staten Island\u2019s physical isolation from the rest of New York City and its status as a haven for blue-collar workers and city employees including police officers and firefighters has long defined its proudly conservative political culture.<\/p>\n

Democrats argue that their party would better represent the island\u2019s changing makeup. Assemblymember Charles Fall, chair of Staten Island Democrats, sees it as a question of how effectively the district\u2019s interests are represented in Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had a Democrat in this seat, I think we would see a representative that was much more reflective of what hardworking people need in this area,\u201d Fall said.<\/p>\n

With half a million residents, Staten Island is the least populous New York City borough. Its median annual household income of nearly $100,000 is around $20,000 higher than the citywide average. It is majority White, according to the US Census, but its Asian American and Hispanic populations have surged in the past 25 years.<\/p>\n

Many of those new residents have clustered on the island\u2019s North Shore, where denser housing, lower incomes and higher shares of Black, Latino and immigrant residents contrast with the predominantly white South Shore. The island is bisected by the Staten Island Expressway, a six-lane artery that residents and planners have long described as a social and economic boundary.<\/p>\n

Staten Island Republicans fear that if Democrats prevail in their redistricting push, they would be losing representation, and that has renewed talk of seceding from the city to get out from under Democratic domination.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a serious conversation, and I feel it\u2019s percolating again,\u201d Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said.<\/p>\n

Secession efforts have surfaced before at times when borough leaders felt Staten Island\u2019s needs weren\u2019t being addressed. In 1993, nearly two-thirds of voters approved a referendum to secede from the city, but the movement stalled in the New York State Assembly.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

National Redistricting Push<\/p>\n

The legal dispute over the district\u2019s shape will likely turn on the question of whether it is being redrawn to benefit one party or another.<\/p>\n

New York passed an amendment to its state constitution in 2014 that prohibits the redrawing of congressional districts to favor candidates or parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical gerrymandering sets up a system where it\u2019s more like an incumbent protection program,\u201d Malliotakis said. \u201cYou eliminate competitive seats like mine, and you make them lopsided where only one party can win, and therefore the voters can\u2019t hold that individual accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a national level, the pressure to revise electoral boundaries is likely to persist. The unusual middecade scramble to design new districts \u2013 previously, most states only altered their maps after the decennial US census \u2013 could become a new norm amid increased polarization and closely divided government. But some onlookers have recoiled at leaving much of the process in the hands of courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to see lines drawn by judicial decree,\u201d said Richard Flanagan, a political science professor at the College of Staten Island. \u201cYou\u2019d rather have a good state legislative process draw the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOP officials have signaled their willingness to take their case to the US Supreme Court, if necessary. In the meantime, Republicans on Staten Island fear that they could lose one their few remaining avenues for exerting national influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the few ways in which Republican voters can have a voice, at least on the national stage, is through this seat,\u201d Fossella said. \u201cAnd to silence it in this way, in this form, just reaffirms people\u2019s cynicism.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"– ADVERTISEMENT – Staten Island stands apart from the rest of New York City in more ways than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-128898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}