Up to tonight, the Republican Party had the narrowest of majorities in the New York State Senate, thanks to a single rogue Democrat who continues to caucus with the Republicans, the last remnant of the “Independent Democratic Conference”, a faction of turncoat Democrats that had eight members until it recently disbanded. Six of those members were defeated by progressive primary challengers, even after they disbanded the IDC and promised to act like Democrats.
Out of the 63 seats up for grabs in the New York State Senate, Democrats currently have leads in 40, according to the website of the New York Board of Elections. Republicans have leads in 23. Five of the Democratic leads are slim enough to still be in doubt, as are two of the Republican leads. All six of the progressive primary winners who beat IDC incumbents have insurmountable leads.
Combined with parallel blowouts in the races for Governor and State Assembly, Democrats now have the trifecta in New York state that we have long sought. Now there are no excuses not to push bold progressive legislation. We can achieve a lot at the state level here, but we’ll need to prod our representatives and remind them that they have a mandate to follow through with.
UPDATE: All of the leads held. It will indeed be 40 Democrats and 23 Republicans. Well done, New York Dems!