Battle for U.S. House Control in 2024 Is Fought in a New York Courtroom

The fight over one of the most consequential congressional battlegrounds in the nation took center stage on Wednesday — not in the hotly contested suburbs or a campaign convention hall, but in a staid courtroom in Buffalo.

That is where Democrats labored to persuade the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, to give their party a chance to redraw the state’s congressional map before the 2024 election.

Their arguments, and a Republican rebuttal, ostensibly turned on conflicting readings of the State Constitution. But the decision by the seven-judge panel in the coming weeks will have far-reaching political implications.

New York now has one of the most competitive congressional maps in the country, thanks to the court’s intervention last year. If Democrats prevail in the case, they are expected to try to reassert their dominance by drawing more favorable lines that could help flip as many as six Republican seats from Long Island to Syracuse.

Republicans currently hold a narrow, five-seat majority in the House. With the number of truly competitive districts dwindling across the country amid a rash of bipartisan gerrymandering, the fate of New York’s map could determine which party enters 2024 with the upper hand.

“A little-known court in New York is in all likelihood about to determine control of Congress,” said Evan Roth Smith, a Democratic political strategist, voicing the bipartisan anxiety the case has caused in New York and Washington.