Good morning. It's Thursday. We'll look at why congressional races provide takeaways for Republicans and Democrats. We'll also look at a Norway spruce that's coming to a very prominent place in Manhattan. |
 | | Brittainy Newman for The New York Times |
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Gov. Kathy Hochul won her first full term, but her five-percentage-point victory over Representative Lee Zeldin reflected how that race went from a cakewalk to a nail-biter. After relentlessly hammering Hochul on crime and inflation, Zeldin came closer to winning a statewide office than any Republican had in 20 years. |
But perhaps the surprise in New York came in congressional races. My colleague Nicholas Fandos writes that New York, where registered Democrats far outnumber Republicans, morphed into perhaps the most powerful drag on the Democrats' chances for maintaining their majority in the House. |
The results weren't the rout some Democrats had feared after Republicans like Representative Elise Stefanik, the self-styled "Ultra MAGA" congresswoman from upstate New York who is the third-ranking Republican in the House, had predicted a "red tsunami." She had said Republicans could take 15 of the state's 26 congressional seats in the next Congress. |
That did not happen, but as Jesse put it, the surf was up for some Republicans. They flipped four House seats in New York, according to The Associated Press — two on Long Island held by Democrats and two in the Hudson Valley, north of New York City. |
One of the Hudson Valley races was particularly embarrassing for the Democrats: Their candidate, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, has been the chairman of the powerful Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party's House campaign arm. Maloney conceded on Wednesday to a first-term Republican state assemblyman, Mike Lawler, who had received heavy financial support from Republicans. |
"The right thing to do is say the other guy won and wish him well," Maloney said in a statement on Zoom from D.C.C.C. headquarters in Washington. His concession came shortly before The Associated Press called the race for Lawler, who led by 1.2 percentage points with more than 95 percent of the vote counted. |
Like Zeldin, Lawler had blamed Maloney and the Democrats for crime and inflation. He also portrayed Maloney as out of touch with constituents. But the race shows how redistricting backfired on the Democrats. Maloney had represented a neighboring congressional district for almost a decade, but after a state judge ordered maps redrawn, he opted to move to a different district that was considered slightly more Democratic. |
He effectively displaced another Democrat, Representative Mondaire Jones, who moved to Brooklyn and ran for a congressional seat there, only to lose in the Democratic primary in August. Jones had been quiet about the race in his old district, but after Maloney conceded, he posted a statement on Twitter. It said, in its entirety, "Yikes." |
Molinaro had lost a special election in August to Pat Ryan, a Democrat, but in the redistricting shuffle, Ryan decided to run in a different district. He was leading Colin Schmitt, the Republican who ran against him, by less than one percentage point with 95 percent of the votes counted. The A.P. had not called the race on Wednesday afternoon, but Schmitt conceded. |
Ryan's district switching created another opening for Molinaro, who defeated Josh Riley, a lawyer and former congressional policy analyst. Riley lost even though Democrats spent $4.6 million more on ads supporting him than Molinaro spent, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. |
It's a mostly sunny day near the high 60s. At night, temps will be around the mid-50s. |
In effect today. Suspended tomorrow (Veterans Day). |
The latest New York stories |
 | | Gabby Jones for The New York Times |
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In the search for a spruce, all roads led to Queensbury, N.Y. |
 | | The Rockefeller Center tree, where Erik Pauze found it in Queensbury, N.Y.via Tishman Speyer |
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Erik Pauze was driving around upstate New York early in the summer, looking at trees. He does that. As the head gardener at Rockefeller Center, he is the person who chooses the Christmas tree. Week after week, month after month, there's always another possibility to check out. |
Someone had sent him a picture of a tree in Glens Falls, N.Y., about 50 miles northeast of Albany. He was on his way to see it. The route took him through nearby Queensbury, where he noticed something. "I passed this tree and said, 'When I'm done over there, I'll come back and look at that one,'" he recalled this week. |
He did. "I kind of knew at that point it would be a great tree for Rockefeller Center," he said. |
That did not mean he had already decided that it would be the one — the one that will be draped with more than 50,000 multicolored LEDs and topped by a 900-pound star designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind, the one that will be lit on television on Nov. 30, the one that will be recycled as lumber for Habitat for Humanity after the holidays. |
First Pauze had to find the owner, Neil Lebowitz. "He lives in Glens Falls, where I had just been," Pauze said. "I started out with, 'Hey, how you doing? My name's Erik. I was up in the area, and there's this tree.'" They had made an appointment for Pauze to do a walkaround, "because I hadn't seen the back side," he said. |
It lived up to his expectations, and he asked to feed and water it. In September, he told Lebowitz it would be "a great tree for this year." |
The tree, a Norway spruce donated by Lebowitz's family, is 82 feet tall and 85 to 90 years old. It is to be cut down this morning. Pauze is guessing it weighs about 14 tons. He won't know for sure until a crane that is standing by lifts it onto a truck for the ride to Manhattan. |
Forty years ago, I had a job interview in Lower Manhattan. Not being from the city, I got lost and had to stop at one of the skyscrapers for help. |
The guard at the desk pointed me toward the next building. |
When I got there, the guard pointed to the next building over. |
Finally, at the fourth building I was directed to, I approached the guard. |
"You the guy looking for the M.T.A.?" he asked. |
"The fellas had me on the lookout," he said. "You're here. Good luck." |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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