The Housing Dream Realized

Why the Long Island wipeout is a blessing in disguise

New York has always been a bubble, but the irony of last week was how that reality was inverted. Instead of the urbanized progressive left gasping at what the rest of the nation had wrought, it was the so-called hinterlands going blue while Republicans nearly won a state that hasn’t voted for a GOP presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan. There were many causes of this localized red wave, from redistricting to crime to a dysfunctional state party and a lackluster Hochul campaign. The losses in New York’s House races will likely contribute to a slim Republican majority in Congress. For Democrats of all ideological stripes, the anguish is real.

It wasn’t all misery, though. Democrats may still keep their veto-proof supermajorities in the State Senate and State Assembly, despite losses on Long Island, in the Hudson Valley, and in the southern reaches of Brooklyn. The campaign arms of each chamber were effective enough and redistricting, in the case of the Senate, was much kinder to their aims. And the way the losses came in the State Senate could be a quiet boon for the pro-housing left, the politicians and activists who understand that the affordability crisis won’t be solved without a regional strategy.