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

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This story originally appeared in <a href="https://nysfocus.com/2024/11/06/how-new-york-voted-2024-harris-trump-senate">New York Focus</a>, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. <a href="https://nysfocus.com/newsletter?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=website" target="_blank">Sign up for their newsletter here</a>.<hr>ELECTIONS · November 6, 2024
<h1>A Weak Showing From Harris, a Strong One from Congressional Dems, and a Win for Abortion Access: How New Yorkers Voted</h1>
<h2>Last month, we asked five questions about what would happen in the election. Here are the answers.</h2>
<h3>By <a class="yellow-underline" href="https://nysfocus.com/author/sam-mellins">Sam Mellins</a> and <a class="yellow-underline" href="https://nysfocus.com/author/chris-bragg">Chris Bragg</a> , New York Focus</h3><figure><img src="https://imgproxy.gridwork.co/lKuvXdtwX64AADKnvSrTtKfO32iVHyrViIhDq9ykJCc/w:820/h:546/rt:fill/g:fp:0.5:0.5/q:90/el:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9zMy51cy1lYXN0LTIuYW1hem9uYXdzLmNvbS9ueXNmb2N1cy9QaG90b3MtR2FnZS1Ta2lkbW9yZS1NYXJjLUEuLUhlcm1hbm4tQ2V6YXJ5LVBpd293YXJjenlrLWFuZC1NYXR0LVdhZGUuanBn.jpg" alt="A photo illustration showing President Donald Trump and NYC Mayor Eric Adams with backgrounds of the White House and Albany Capitol Building." /><figcaption>Former President Donald Trump didn’t win New York, but he did better in the state than any Republican presidential candidate for decades. / Photo illustration via Flickr accounts of Gage Skidmore, Marc A Hermann, Cezary Piwowarczyk and Matt Wade + NY Focus</figcaption></figure>	Last month, we <a href="https://nysfocus.com/2024/10/16/guide-new-yorks-2024-elections-choices">published a guide</a> to the key issues on New Yorker’s ballots in this year’s election.
We asked five questions:
1. Does Donald Trump have any chance in New York? 2. Can New York Republicans help their party keep control of the House? 3. Will Eric Adams’s bid to revise New York City’s charter be successful despite his indictment? 4. Will New York voters pass an amendment enshrining abortion rights? 5. Can Republicans make a dent in the state legislature’s Democratic majorities?
After yesterday, we can now bring you the answers. This story will be updated as more results come in.

You can read the rest of our coverage of New York’s elections<a href="https://nysfocus.com/category/electoral-politics"> here</a>.			<div id="wisepops-embed-newsletter-variant2"></div>
		
	<h3>Trump loses in New York — but makes a historic showing</h3>
Former President Donald Trump swept four of the seven key swing states to win the presidency last night, and appears on track to win the remaining three. And while he didn’t win New York, he did better in the state than any Republican presidential candidate for decades. 
Kamala Harris captured 55 percent of New York’s votes to Trump’s 45 percent, the thinnest blue majority since 1992. That performance was <a href="https://www.270towin.com/2024-presidential-election-polls/new-york">roughly in line</a> with the few polls of the non-competitive state. Trump did significantly better than in 2020, when he won 38 percent of the state’s vote.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand easily dispatched her Republican challenger, Michael Sapraicone, winning 58 percent of the vote to send her to the Senate for a third full term.
<h3>New York Democrats make gains in Congress</h3>
Control of the U.S. House is still up in the air, with several dozen races across the country remaining too close to call. 
In New York, though, Democrats won a majority of key races, reversing some of their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/02/nyregion/ny-legislature-candidates.html">embarrassing defeats</a> in 2022 and salvaging the reputation of Governor Kathy Hochul, whose lackluster campaign that year was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/17/nyregion/hochul-democrats-house-election.html">widely blamed</a> for the losses. Of the seven battleground seats in the state, Democrats will retain control of two and flip at least two, and likely a third that remains too close to call. 
The Democratic holds: Incumbent Democrats Tom Suozzi, representing northeastern Long Island, and Pat Ryan, representing the mid-Hudson Valley, fended off Republican challengers.
The Democratic gains: Democratic challengers Josh Riley and John Mannion defeated Republican incumbents to win control of two Central New York districts. 
A likely Democratic gain: Democratic challenger Laura Gillen has declared victory in her southeastern Long Island district, though some votes remain to be counted, and her opponent — incumbent Republican Anthony D’Esposito — has not conceded. 
The Republican holds:Two swing-seat Republicans fended off their Democratic challengers: Nick LaLota, who represents eastern Long Island, and Mike Lawler of the lower Hudson Valley. Lawler’s race was among the most heavily scrutinized in the country. The limited polling showed it to be closely competitive, but he defeated former Congressman Mondaire Jones by seven points.	<h3>Eric Adams Scores a Win With Ballot Measures. But How Much Does it Matter?</h3>
Though a significant number of votes remain to be counted, New York City residents are on track to pass four out of five ballot measures revising the city’s charter that were proposed by the Eric Adams administration. It’s a defeat for the City Council, which had urged New Yorkers to reject the measures, and a win for the beleaguered mayor. 
It may even be a double victory: Adams appeared to have first pushed these changes in the spring to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/nyregion/charter-revision-adams-council.html">block a City Council-proposed ballot measure</a> that would have reined in his power to make appointments to key mayoral administration posts. Even so, the measures won’t significantly change how city government functions.
Here’s what the changes (numbered two through six because the Equal Rights Amendment was number one) will do:
Ballot Measure Two: Expand the purview of the city Department of Sanitation to allow sanitation workers to operate in parks and other non-street public spaces, including by issuing tickets to unlicensed vendors there, and to allow the department to require that buildings use containers to take out trash rather than placing bags on the sidewalk. APPROVED
Ballot Measure Three: Give the mayor-controlled Office of Management and Budget an opportunity to estimate the cost of any proposed law prior to a City Council vote. The measure would also obligate the council to prepare their own estimate — which is already required — earlier in the legislative process, before public hearings are held, so cost can be taken into account before a vote. LIKELY APPROVED
Ballot Measure Four: Require the City Council to give 30 days’ notice to the police, fire, or corrections departments, along with the public, before voting on any legislation that affects those divisions of government. APPROVED
Five: Require the city to collect more information about some of its maintenance needs. APPROVED 
Six: Amend the charter to establish a city “chief business diversity officer,” change rules governing what part of government issues film permits, and merge two municipal archive boards. LIKELY REJECTED	<h3>New York voters pass an amendment enshrining abortion rights</h3>
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 <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@nysfocus/video/7433545148883127582">false argument</a> 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 <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/uline-uihlein-election-denial">Richard Uihlein</a>, 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 <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/24/new-york-democrats-abortion-vote-00185309">were misspent</a> 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.” 
<h3>Mostly status quo for the State Legislature</h3>
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 <a href="https://nysfocus.com/2023/08/01/brooklyn-democratic-party-rodneyse-bichotte-hermelyn-losing-streak">trended red</a> 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.	 
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