Democratic state Sen. Tim Kennedy won a special election in the deep blue 26th District in western New York to serve the rest of Brian Higgins’ term

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.”

  • @nereaders
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    5216 days ago

    If the 26th district is “reliably blue” and a Democrat replaced a Democrat, how does this “narrow” the Republican majority in the House?

    • @[email protected]
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      7016 days ago

      I guess it’s because since the seat was technically empty for a bit it wasn’t counting to the dem’s numbers and getting it back narrows the majority specifically from that period of time, but yeah super clickbaity way to say it. Wake me up when a red seat flips.

      • @[email protected]
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        16 days ago

        I’ll add more meh to the mix, Congress has ALWAYS been viewed that way retired Rep. Higgins. JFK have you not ready any history?

    • The Fire Witch
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      1216 days ago

      It’s a half-point in our favor since it changes the number of active representatives

    • @spongebue
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      715 days ago

      A blue seat, even one that could be predicted, is better than an empty one