A Weak Showing From Harris, a Strong One from Congressional Dems, and a Win for Abortion Access: How New Yorkers Voted

New York voters pass an amendment enshrining abortion rights

New York voters have passed a ballot proposition enshrining abortion rights and other civil protections into New York’s constitution.

On Wednesday morning, with 85 percent of the vote in, 62 percent of voters had approved the proposal, enough for the New York Times and Associated Press to call it.

Passage of the proposition came two years after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which for decades had generally protected people’s right to have an abortion.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pushed the amendment as a means of driving Democratic turnout in battleground New York congressional races.

While New York already has strong laws on the books protecting abortion, Democrats argued that a constitutional amendment was a necessary bulwark against state Republicans changing the laws in the future.

The amendment does more than protect abortion rights. It also bars discrimination in New York based on a long list of factors including ethnicity, natural origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy.

Opponents seemed to gain some traction by criticizing the sections of the amendment that went beyond abortion, including a false argument that it would allow non-citizens to vote.

In the days leading up to the election, well-funded opposition materialized through a group called “Vote no On Prop One Committee.” The group received $6.5 million from Richard Uihlein, the billionaire CEO of a major shipping supply company, who listed an address in Illinois; $1 million from Tom Tisch, a New York City financier; and $500,000 from Warren Stephens, an Arkansas-based owner of an investment bank.

Amid criticism that funds meant to bolster the amendment were misspent on overhead costs rather than voter outreach, proponents highlighted their efforts on Tuesday, which ultimately succeeded.

The main group pushing the measure, New Yorkers for Equal Rights, said that it had spent $5.1 million — about 74 percent of the campaign’s total budget — on direct voter contact, calling over a million voters and knocking on more than 260,000 doors.

“This team overcame a last-minute, multi-million dollar smear campaign from out-of-state, anti-abortion billionaires bent on scaring and dividing voters,” Sasha Ahuja, campaign director of New Yorkers for Equal Rights, said Tuesday evening. “But as we well know, New Yorkers aren’t easily fooled. In every corner of the state, voters showed up at the polls to protect their rights, and the rights of generations of New Yorkers to come.”

Mostly status quo for the State Legislature

Democrats will retain strong majorities in the State Senate and Assembly, though they appeared to come up just short of a supermajority in the Senate.

In the 2022 election, Democrats won 42 of 63 Senate seats — exactly two-thirds of the body, earning them the ability to theoretically overcome gubernatorial vetoes without help from Republicans. They lost this supermajority status in April, when a Democratic senator left the body to join the US Congress.

In southern Brooklyn — an area that has trended red in recent years — incumbent Democratic Senator Iwen Chu was unseated by Republican Steve Chan, losing by 10 points. A former New York Police Department sergeant, Chan will be the first Asian American to join the Republican Senate conference.

The closest race was in the Syracuse area, where a Democratic incumbent had vacated the seat and Republicans saw a top pickup chance.

With all election districts reporting, Democratic Christopher Ryan had won 48.67 percent of the vote, while Republican Nick Paro had 48.33 percent – a difference of only 548 votes. Because the race was within a half-percentage point margin, a law mandating an automatic recount appears to have triggered.

In the Assembly, Democrats had won 102 of 150 seats in 2022.

Early Tuesday morning, Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie tweeted that it appeared the “Assembly Democratic Majority will increase to 103 members!”

One Democratic incumbent who narrowly lost was Monica Wallace, who was defeated in a western New York race by Republican Patrick Chludzinski.

Through the 2016 elections, Republicans held a majority in New York’s Senate for most of five decades. But their fortunes waned dramatically during the presidency of Donald Trump. Democrats seized the majority in the 2018 midterm elections and have since expanded it.

Losing the supermajority may be a largely symbolic issue. Even when they’ve enjoyed a supermajority, Democrats have not used it to override vetoes issued by Hochul, a fellow Democrat.