In final redistricting, new 10th Congressional District will include Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. Is Bill de Blasio the front-runner?

I wrote in February that, thanks to Democratic Party-controlled redistricting, Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park would have some new Democratic legislators representing it in Congress--assuming no successful legal challenge.

Excerpted from The City

Well, that challenges has produced a new set of maps--and that means the project site will have a single new representative, surely a Democrat.

Oddly enough, it might be former Mayor and Council Member Bill de Blasio, who enters the race for the new non-incumbent 10th District with the most name recognition, plus, of course, the most negatives. (It would be pretty rich to see Congressman de Blasio at, say, a groundbreaking.)

The district stretches from Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and the East Village/Lower East Side through Lower Manhattan to DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, and Sunset Park.

So Rep. Yvette Clarke--a Flatbush resident--is losing Atlantic Yards, as her 9th District boundary moves east of Washington Avenue.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez's 7th District now includes part of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill to Atlantic Avenue east of Cumberland Street, and dips down Vanderbilt Avenue two blocks to Dean Street, thus running to Classon Avenue. (She lives in Red Hook, in the 10th, but there's no residency requirement.)

Excerpted from The City

And Hakeem Jeffries' 8th District starts at Classon Avenue on the north side of Atlantic, and goes east. (Jeffries lives in the 7th, a few blocks away.)

Note: Jeffries called the new maps "a constitutional travesty," decrying, among other things, "severing the historic connection between the Upper West Side and Borough Park." Well, that does remove "the most Jewish district" in the country, but, c'mon--the Jews of the Upper West Side and those in Borough Park do not necessarily share all the same interests.

Also note: the changes now mean three different Congressional reps would be representing the M-CROWN area. (If concerns stretching to Flatbush Avenue are counted, then add a fourth rep.) But given that it's not a Congressional issue--unless, of course, there's some pork--maybe that's not a big deal.

The race for the 10th

In New York magazine, Errol Louis recounts the tangled process and observes, "A New Progressive Tenth District Has Set Off a Political Free-for-All."

Among those are in the mix as possible/confirmed candidates are, from Manhattan,  Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou and, from Brooklyn, Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon. (Brooklyn Assemblymbmer Bobby Carroll and Manhattan state Senator Brad Hoylman say they won't run.)

Louis notes that, despite de Blasio's general unpopularity, "his Park Slope base may be willing to go to bat for him one more time." 

Complicating the race is the first announced Black candidate, freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones—from Rockland County and northern Westchester!--who would avoid facing a fellow incumbent in the northern suburbs.

“This is the birthplace of the LGBTQ+ rights movement," tweeted Jones, who presumably would cut into some of de Blasio's base.

Note: these races are not ranked-choice voting. All a candidate needs is a plurality.