Squint at Tuesday night’s results and it can look a little like the famous map called “View of the World From Ninth Avenue,” in which Midtown looms just over the rocky crags of the American West.
For the first time, sons of New York are poised to run both chambers of Congress and the White House. Representative Hakeem Jeffries is expected to be the new House speaker, Chuck Schumer will become Senate majority leader and President Trump will remain President Trump.
So a city obsessed with power woke up on Wednesday morning to a version of it that seemed less conceptual and more brass tacks.
“Both Hakeem and Chuck embody a certain kind of New York scrappiness that was a big part of what happened last night — both of them are in their own way strategists and street fighters,” said Representative-elect Micah Lasher, who will succeed Representative Jerrold Nadler in Manhattan. He added, “New Yorkers stand to benefit significantly.”
New York’s deal makers are getting ready to put these connections to use. There is talk of finding federal support for building more affordable homes in Queens, improving the subways and fixing Pennsylvania Station.
There’s also a broader boost for what some politicians are thinking about as a New York moment. With both chambers of Congress to be led by Brooklyn natives, local leaders argue this is a political upheaval marked by utterly New York qualities — like savvy, braggadocio and an emphatic focus on affordability.
“Right now, Brooklyn is the center of the universe and the center of the Democratic universe,” said Antonio Reynoso, the progressive borough president of Brooklyn. “Brooklyn’s ability to govern is going to determine the next presidential election. Who else can say that? Name one other place that can say that. They can’t.”
Still giddy from election watch parties, New Yorkers who are headed to Congress for the first time bandied around the sorts of programs and policies they would like to see prioritized, with New Yorkers in charge.
There’s the beleaguered Gateway project, a rail tunnel under the Hudson River that has been the victim of a stop-start series of funding freezes and delays coming from the Trump administration. There’s the ambitious notion of building affordable houses in a sprawling rail yard in western Queens. This project, Sunnyside Yard, was already the unlikely source of comity between two sons of New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Mr. Trump (now technically a Floridian).
“Some write it off as a fantasy,” Mr. Lasher said on Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s a fantasy, and it certainly became more real last night.”
He went on to rattle off other local infrastructure needs that could benefit from substantial federal investments, including the extension of the Second Avenue subway line. Brad Lander, another incoming congressman representing parts of Brooklyn, noted the opportunity to prioritize New York’s needs in the Surface Transportation Reauthorization, a process that manages funding for the country’s roads and public transit systems.
“Both houses are being led by people who know the importance of the New York City subway system,” Mr. Lander said. “New York does breed fighters, and this is a moment when the voters are demanding that we fight.”
There’s also the more than 20,000 New Yorkers affected by changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and the over 400,000 poised to be affected by Medicaid changes. These groups were on Mr. Mamdani’s mind Wednesday afternoon, when he stood on City Hall’s back porch gleefully talking about the election results and the promise they carried for putting money into New York priorities.
“I think that having leaders in Washington be from our city and of our city is of incredible importance to our city, because for them, the struggles of New Yorkers are not intellectual concerns,” Mr. Mamdani said.
The mayor pointed to his own productive meetings with Mr. Trump, which have played out like something between “Veep” and “The Odd Couple.”
“We look to work together on the areas that we can agree on,” he said. “One of those very limited number of areas is the welfare of the city as a whole.”
Despite its own heavy dose of self-regard, New York knows what it’s like to be shunted aside by Washington. (As Mr. Mamdani joked in a recent meeting with Mr. Trump, one example was the famous federal response to the city’s fiscal crisis: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”)
After Hurricane Sandy, which eroded coastlines and ruined electrical systems and knocked buildings right off their foundations, New York’s congressional delegation wanted some $60 billion in federal funds for repairs. They were counter-offered slightly more than $27 billion, much to the dismay of Pete King, then a Republican congressman who represented parts of Long Island.
“We had to basically bring Congress to a halt to get the money,” Mr. King said. “It definitely would have been different if New Yorkers had been in charge.”
“If you have to have Democrats in charge,” he added, “As a New Yorker its better to have Schumer and Jeffries.”
Some New York leaders were quick to claim the Democratic surge on Tuesday night as an extension of the progressive momentum created by Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. Democratic leaders and strategists pointed to Mr. Mamdani’s high favorability, his viral and now oft-replicated videos, and even the euphoria that blanketed New York this summer as the Knicks won the championship and the World Cup took over streets.
Mr. Mamdani, for his part, just smiled and said on Wednesday that it was “a good day” when he was asked if his victory a year ago helped to set Tuesday’s results into motion.
Demurring, from a New York politician? Go figure. His campaign strategist was less reserved.
“I think this New York leadership is indicative of a party that you’ve seen start to find its voice, in terms of being a big tent that’s focused on delivering material goods to address the affordability crisis,” said the strategist, Morris Katz, who also serves as an adviser to the incoming governor of Texas, Gina Hinojosa. “To the credit of Jeffries and Schumer, they saw that and leaned into it.”
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