Democrats who control the state Legislature are plotting to knock off Rep. Nicole Malliotakis — the only Republican member of New York City’s congressional delegation — by redrawing a legislative district to add liberal Brooklyn precincts to her Republican stronghold, sources told The Post Wednesday night.
The Democrat’s plan would drastically alter the 11th congressional district, which combines Staten Island, her political base, with some more conservative areas of southern Brooklyn, including Bay Ridge, Bath Beach and Dyker Heights.
Under the redistricting plan that would go into effect for elections later this year, the district would include Bay Ridge but then snake northwest and take in the more heavily liberal Democratic neighborhoods of Sunset Park, Red Hook, Gowanus, Windsor Terrace and Park Slope, legislative sources said.
“Those are big Democratic areas,” one legislative source said.
Legislative insiders said if a Democratic candidate can run up the score with 80 percent of the vote in the Brooklyn side of the district, he or she can win by capturing about 40 percent in more conservative Staten Island.
The 11th CD is considered a purple or bellwether district as currently constituted.
Malliotakis defeated one-term Democratic incumbent Max Rose in the 2020 elections, aided by a strong showing by former President Trump in the district. Rose is seeking the Democratic nominations again in a potential rematch.
Brooklyn Democrat Assemblyman Robert Carroll, whose district takes in all of Park Slope and who graduated from Xaverian HS in Bay Ridge and has family roots there, has told politicos he is considering running for the redrawn congressional seat, sources said.
The Democratic primary also includes Democratic socialist Brittany Ramos DeBarros, who, like Rose, is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan.
The state Legislature is required to redraw congressional districts every ten years to account for population changes after the decennial census count.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, the former Bronx Democratic leader, has tried to keep a lid on the behind-closed-doors discussions of the congressional maps. Democratic Assembly members were required to turn over their cell phones before entering so they wouldn’t take pictures of the new maps.
Democrats control both the state Senate and Assembly and therefore have total control over the redistricting process after a bipartisan commission failed to agree on a plan.
Democrat lawmakers are also rejiggering suburban and upstate congressional maps, which could cost Republicans several other seats. At least one Republican seat upstate will be eliminated because of a decline in population.
The Senate and Assembly are expected to vote on the new redistricting maps in the coming days.
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