One of the attempts to try to explain Kathy Hochul’s upset win appeared on theatlantic.com and was written by Chris Good, who is identified as an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he writes for the Politics channel and who previously reported and blogged for The Hill newspaper.
With that background, I would hope that Good understood that the numbers of congressional districts often change over the years because of redistricting. But I guess he doesn’t.
How else can I explain this stupid sentence in Good’s story –
Republicans had dominated the Buffalo district for almost a decade, representing it in Congress since 2004.
The truth is that this district has been represented by Republicans for 4 decades, since Jack Kemp’s election in 1970.
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/the_gateway_ho_ho_hochul_edition.html
The district had a different number that year than this because New York had more Congressional Districts than it does now.
In fact, the district number for the suburban Buffalo district has changed after every census because New York has lost seats every 10 years seats are numbered beginning with the one on Eastern Long Island, so that by the time they get to Western New York, the old number is gone.
If Good took the time to do a little research, he’d learn that from the time Jack Kemp took the office, this district was number 39, then 38, 31 27, and finally became the 26th in 2002.