Whether tonight’s election was a “wave” or not will probably be up for some debate, but there were wins in unexpected parts of America for the GOP, including in two congressional districts in New York State. Both candidates brought something to the table: Elise Stefanik of New York’s 21st congressional district is the woman ever elected to Congress — and she did so in spectacular fashion, obliterating her opponent for the open seat by more than 20 points. Meanwhile, Lee Zeldin unseated Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop in New York’s first congressional district by a comfortable margin, too, about ten points.
Neither district is a really tough one for Republicans: They’re both about even districts in the Partisan Voting Index (geographically, Stefanik’s is the big northern cap of upstate New York, and Zeldin’s is the eastern tip of Long Island). But the GOP had struggled to take the 21st over the last five years, as Eliana explained in an NRO piece earlier this year, and to beat Bishop, an apparently corrupt incumbent with a hold on the district’s levers of power.
But they’re two promising additions to Congress. Stefanik will be one of the first Millennials elected to Congress, and a full-spectrum conservative to boot, in addition to being seen as a conservative rising star who’s as adept at retail politicking as she is at reassuring donors. Zeldin is an Iraq veteran (the DCCC briefly trotted out an ad campaign portraying him as a cowardly lion for unrelated reasons) and will replace the recently departed Eric Cantor as House Republicans’ one-man Jewish caucus.
Zeldin leaves behind his former colleagues in the New York State senate, but there’s good news, there, too: The Republican party now holds an outright majority in the state’s upper chamber, with 32 seats in the 63-seat body. (They had previously controlled the senate in conjunction with a few “independent Democrats.”)