Congressional elections are happening across this state this fall, and most candidates still don't know what district they're running for.
New York State is still looking to draw a new set of congressional district lines, after a judge threw out the existing lines, saying they were only meant to be temporary.
Phil Klinkner, a professor of government at Hamilton College, said until new congressional district lines are drawn, it will be impossible to predict how elections will go.
“Nobody really knows, there are just so many unknowns at this point,” Klinkner said. “What we do know is that we’re going to have new lines but where they are going to land is anybody’s guess.”
While the lines can’t be predicted, from what he can guess Klinkner predicts the new map will likely end up favorable to New York’s Democrats.
“Most likely outcome is you’re going to get a set of lines that’s going to be more favorable to New York Democrats, and would allow Democrats to pick up one, two, three seats, maybe,” Klinkner said. “But again, we just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Another thing Klinkner is predicting is a relatively competitive election season. He said New York residents will likely see a huge uptick in political ads.
“As soon as we get these lines then you’re going to probably have a fair number of competitive races and we’re going to be deluged with political ads like we were four years ago, two years ago,” Klinkner said.
New maps are due to the state legislature by the end of February.
