Democrats win a New York special election, further narrowing the House GOP's majority [View all]

Democrats won a special election for a House seat in western New York on Tuesday, The Associated Press projected, further shrinking the GOP's narrow majority in the House. Democratic state Sen. Tim Kennedy defeated Republican town supervisor Gary Dickson in the 26th District, a reliably blue area that includes Buffalo and some of its surrounding suburbs. Democrats will now control 213 seats in the House, compared with 217 for the Republicans. Five seats remain vacant.

Kennedy will serve the rest of Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins' term. Higgins, who was in his 10th term, resigned in February to run a local performing arts center, and he had some choice words for partisan gridlock in the House. Higgins told The Buffalo News late last year that Congress is “in a very, very bad place” and that “we’re at the beginning phases of a deterioration of the prestige of the institution.”

That did not deter Kennedy from running in the special election or for a full term in November. “The dysfunction has become an embarrassment across this country and across the global community,” Kennedy said in a phone interview Monday. “And we have to restore honor and civility and functionality back into the halls of the House of Representatives.”

Kennedy’s victory Monday was no surprise — President Joe Biden won the district by 23 percentage points in 2020, according to calculations from Daily Kos Elections, and the district has twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/new-york-special-election-win-house-26-district-rcna149581