Malliotakis Map Massacre: Hochul’s War Puts NYC GOP on the Brink
Will Trump DOJ Act on a Marc Elias Indictment?
NOTE: This piece first appeared on NYNewsPress.com.
By Richard Luthmann and M. Thomas Nast
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has declared “this is a war” over redistricting, and Republicans now face brutal choices in a city turning hostile. Will Trump’s DOJ finally indict leftist legal mastermind Marc Elias to save New York’s lone GOP seat, or is it time to urge Republicans to flee a dying city before it collapses like Detroit?
As socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani prepares to meet President Trump, a single high-stakes negotiation could determine whether New York burns blue forever—or whether a last-minute bipartisan lifeline saves Republicans from extinction in the five boroughs.
Hochul Declares ‘War’ in Redistricting Showdown
New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul is openly “at war” over political maps. She stood with Texas Democrats this summer and blasted Republican gerrymandering as part of a “broader authoritarian playbook.
“This is a war. We are at war. And that’s why the gloves are off,” Hochul warned, vowing to “fight fire with fire” in a nationwide redistricting brawl.
Her message was unmistakable: blue states like New York will no longer “sit quietly” while red states redraw maps to GOP advantage. Hochul announced plans to scrap New York’s independent redistricting commission and revisit the congressional lines mid-decade. This would be an unprecedented power play aimed squarely at Republican-held districts.
For New York City’s beleaguered Republicans, Hochul’s offensive feels personal. The state’s only GOP member of Congress from the city, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island, could see her district erased in a partisan remap.
State legislative leaders are “on board” with a review of the lines, signaling that Malliotakis’s seat – the last GOP foothold in NYC – is a prime target. Republicans accuse Hochul and her allies of a naked attempt to “vote Republicans out of power” by changing the rules.
Hochul openly acknowledges as much, arguing Democrats have “no choice” but to rewrite maps since GOP states “rewrite them at will.” She cast the fight as existential, saying voters are fed up and “ready to vote Republicans out” in 2026.
The gloves-off approach has turned redistricting into open warfare – and the first casualty may be New York City’s lone Republican seat.
Malliotakis Map Massacre: Lawfare Shark Marc Elias
Amid Hochul’s map offensive, GOP insiders are aiming at the Democrats’ legal general: attorney Marc Elias. Long seen by the right as a “leftist lawfare shark,” Elias has masterminded election lawsuits from Russia-gate to relaxed voting rules.
“When Democrats want to tilt elections…Marc Elias is the go-to guy,” one insider noted, recalling how his firm hired operatives to peddle the discredited Steele dossier against Donald Trump.
Marc Elias carries political baggage that only gets heavier with time, and his role in funding and funneling the now-discredited Steele Dossier remains the biggest item in that overstuffed suitcase. Elias was the chief lawyer for the Clinton campaign when he helped hire Fusion GPS to develop the so-called “research” that became the Steele Dossier—a document later torn to shreds by the DOJ Inspector General, Special Counsel Durham, and even the FBI itself.
The dossier’s core claims collapsed, yet its deployment set off years of chaos: media hysteria, FISA warrants later deemed improperly granted, and an investigation built on sand. Elias wasn’t charged with wrongdoing, but the public record shows he was at the center of the operation—approving the payments, directing outside contractors, and acting as the legal firewall for the campaign’s opposition research machine.
Elias’s problems didn’t end there. Senate investigators revealed that Elias and Fusion GPS made misleading statements about the origins and financing of the dossier, and Durham’s report documented how political lawyers obscured who paid for the material. Even the Federal Election Commission sanctioned the Clinton campaign and the DNC for disguising payments to Fusion GPS as “legal services” processed through Elias’s firm.
Again, no charges for Elias—but the pattern is unmistakable: aggressive lawfare, murky disclosures, and a willingness to blur ethical lines when partisan victory is on the table.
To critics, it’s the same blueprint he’s using today in New York’s redistricting war—weaponizing legal filings, pushing novel theories, and driving high-impact political outcomes through the courts rather than through voters.
Whether in the Steele Dossier saga or the NY-11 fight, Elias shows the same instinct: win first, explain later.
Elias Cries Racism to Run Roughshod on Republican Districts
Now Elias is spearheading new suits to weaken voting safeguards. He has a magic weapon in the courts. It’s called the RACE CARD.
His outfit filed a federal lawsuit to kill an Ohio law that blocks noncitizens from registering to vote, cloaking the challenge as a race-based voting rights case. Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State blasted the move, noting “dark money groups represented by D.C. operatives” are trying to strike down a basic citizenship proof requirement.
“We will win this case – just like we’ve fought off the other baseless actions,” Secretary Frank LaRose vowed.
To the GOP, Elias’s tactics exemplify “lawfare” – using courts to achieve partisan aims that voters might reject. He has pushed to loosen voter ID laws, extend ballot deadlines, and legalize controversial ballot harvesting. Republicans argue these measures water down election integrity and invite fraud.
Anger at Elias has reached a boiling point. Many on the right brand him “crooked” and are urging action. They note that even a federal appeals court sanctioned Elias for “misleading” conduct – failing to disclose a denied motion in a Texas voting case, violating his “duty of candor.”
“Elias has no valid explanation for the misleading submissions…They blatantly chose to ignore [ethical rules],” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said after the Fifth Circuit fined the lawyer.
Now, Republican voices are asking: Is it time for Trump’s DOJ to indict Marc Elias? They see an opening to hit back at the Democrats’ legal spearhead.
An indictment or federal investigation of Elias – for his role in past election controversies or alleged false statements – would be a drastic counterpunch. It could “derail” Democrats’ redistricting lawsuit in New York’s courts, which Trump allies dub a “crooked” system after it convicted the former president on what they call non-crimes.
Indicting the left’s top election lawyer would pour gasoline on this political war – but some Republicans say the stakes justify it.
Malliotakis Map Massacre: Staten Island on the Chopping Block
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis speaks to supporters in Staten Island, the lone Republican enclave of New York City. Her hard-fought hold on New York’s 11th Congressional District is now under siege.
Democrats, from Albany to Washington, have literally declared “war” on the GOP in New York, targeting Malliotakis’s seat for elimination through an aggressive legal pincer move.
Voters in Staten Island elected Malliotakis because they believe in borders, support the police, and value common-sense policies. Now Democratic operatives are bent on undoing that choice by carving up her district in court – a drastic gambit Malliotakis blasts as “a blatant political hit job.”
Top New York Democrats have made no secret of their designs on Malliotakis’s district – the city’s only Republican-held seat. Party strategists see Staten Island as the low-hanging fruit in their quest to boost House Democrats.
“Flipping the House isn’t optional,” proclaimed Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman, who represents Manhattan. If Staten Island gets drawn into his district, Goldman boasted he’s ready to “take the fight for democracy and a Democratic House majority to Nicole Malliotakis’ doorstep.”
In private, one Democratic insider has even bragged that the new map would “end the Republican era on Staten Island” – permanently silencing the borough’s conservative voice.
The message is clear: Malliotakis’s seat is the first battlefield in what Hochul herself frames as an all-out war to wipe out New York City’s last Republican stronghold.
Malliotakis Map Massacre: A Precision-Engineered Redistricting Strike
This is no ordinary redistricting tussle – it’s a surgical strike crafted by Marc Elias. The lawsuit his firm filed in state court is a precision-guided demolition plan aimed squarely at NY-11. Elias’s complaint alleges that Malliotakis’s district, as drawn, violates minority voting rights despite the irony that Malliotakis is the first Hispanic American ever elected to office in Staten Island.
The challengers claim the current map, which keeps Staten Island whole, “unconstitutionally” dilutes the influence of Black and Latino voters.
Their proposed “remedy”?
Carve up Staten Island for the first time in living memory.
Under the Elias plan, Staten Island would be split into two, a radical remake unseen since the 1970s:
North Shore (the island’s more diverse, urban section) ripped away and fused to Lower Manhattan, a deep-blue area that votes over 80% Democrat in general elections. This new hybrid district would lump Staten Islanders in with Manhattanites who have virtually nothing in common with them politically or geographically.
The rest of Staten Island – its more suburban, conservative communities – is shoved into a district dominated by Coney Island and southern Brooklyn, neighborhoods that also lean heavily Democratic. Staten Island’s GOP voters would be submerged under a tidal wave of Brooklyn blue, effectively drowning out their influence.
In both proposed districts, Malliotakis would be hopelessly outnumbered by Democrats. The North Shore-Manhattan mashup would almost guarantee a Manhattan liberal represents Staten Island’s north. The southern slice of Staten Island, dragged into Brooklyn, would likewise be dominated by Brooklyn Democrats.
It’s a one-two punch designed to knock out Malliotakis no matter which way she turns. Her reliable base of Staten Island voters – who delivered her victory twice – would be diluted and dispersed. Staten Island’s voice would be drowned beneath the sheer weight of Manhattan progressives and Brooklyn socialists.
The end result?
NY-11 would effectively die – its pieces absorbed into two Democratic strongholds, erasing the district that Staten Islanders have called their own for generations.
Democrats aren’t even hiding the partisan intent. The suit baldly admits it seeks a “minority-influence district” linking Staten Island to Manhattan – a polite euphemism for a safe Democratic seat.
One Democratic strategist gloated that the plan would “finally snuff out any GOP foothold in NYC.” Indeed, as the Associated Press notes, if successful, this redraw could flip a Republican seat and “help Democrats retake the House majority.”
This legal strategy is simply gerrymandering by another name – using the courts to achieve what Democrats couldn’t at the ballot box.
Public statements echo that gleeful confidence. When asked about possibly inheriting Staten Island in a remap, Rep. Dan Goldman crowed that “nothing can stand in the way of us defeating Donald Trump and his spineless lackeys in Congress”, with Malliotakis squarely in his sights.
This naked partisanship belies the lofty civil-rights rhetoric of the lawsuit. It’s power politics, plain and simple.
And Democrats freely admit victory means snuffing out NYC’s last Republican seat – turning Staten Island from a two-party battleground into a one-party Democratic colony.
Malliotakis Fights Back: “A Blatant Hit Job”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is not taking this lying down. She has forcefully condemned the lawsuit as a brazen partisan power grab.
“This new lawsuit is a frivolous attempt to circumvent the New York State Constitution and court decisions,” blasted New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox, noting that it’s pushed by “the same lawyers who defended [New York’s] unconstitutional [Democratic] gerrymander in 2022.”
![NYS GOP Chairman Ed Cox [File Photo]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AsgY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F43a7a18f-dc92-468d-a075-281ec2cd8896_980x654.jpeg "NYS GOP Chairman Ed Cox [File Photo]")
It amounts to a “blatant racial gerrymander” dressed up in voting-rights language, Cox said, calling it “a naked attempt to disenfranchise voters in NY-11 and elect a Democrat… contrary to the will of voters.”
The problem for the NY GOP is that Ed Cox is no wartime consigliere.
But Nicole Malliotakis is a pitbull, and she didn’t mince words.
In a statement, NYC’s most powerful Republican Pol slammed the suit as “a terrible abuse of the legal process by an ultra-partisan Washington law firm that does the bidding of the national Democratic Party.” Its only aim, she said, is “to tilt the scales to give their party an advantage in next year’s election.”
In other words, it’s a judicial end-run around the voters.
Malliotakis noted that Democrats have tried and failed to defeat her at the polls – so now they’re trying to literally change the electorate by redrawing the lines.
“They’ve tried three times to redraw my district because they cannot beat me at the ballot box,” she recently told supporters, referencing Democrats’ repeated map machinations.
She’s right – unable to win Staten Island’s support fair and square, her opponents want a judge to knock her out by fiat.
Republicans also point out the bitter irony in the lawsuit’s claim of minority disenfranchisement. Nicole Malliotakis, the daughter of a Cuban mother and Greek father, made history in 2010 as the first-ever Hispanic American elected to public office in Staten Island. Her rise represented growing diversity in local politics.
Now she’s being targeted under the guise of protecting minority voters – a claim she calls absurd. Staten Island’s minority population has indeed grown (from 11% to 30% over 40 years), but a Hispanic congresswoman already represents those communities.
Malliotakis and her allies argue the lawsuit isn’t about minority rights at all – it’s about partisan gain.
“Everyone should see this effort for what it is,” GOP Chair Cox urged, “a naked attempt” to grab a House seat by judicial force.
Malliotakis has vowed to fight it tooth and nail, rallying her constituents against what she terms a cynical Democratic attempt to “steal the seat” outside of normal elections.
But if she is to succeed, she’ll need heavier artillery than Edward Ridley Finch Cox to rally for the heart of the outer boroughs.
Malliotakis Map Massacre: Crooked New York Courts Become the Battlefield
Having failed in the legislature, Democrats are weaponizing the courts to achieve their redistricting goals. The fate of NY-11 now lies in the hands of the New York court system, which has become a battleground for partisan fights. A state Supreme Court judge in Manhattan will hear the case in an expedited proceeding – likely fast-tracked to finish within two months, given the 2026 election timeline.
Any ruling will sprint through appeals: first to the mid-level Appellate Division, and then almost certainly to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
In theory, New York’s constitution forbids mid-decade redistricting for pure partisanship, and that was the basis on which the state’s Court of Appeals struck down a Democratic gerrymander in 2022. But the Elias lawsuit attempts an end run around those precedents by framing it as a Voting Rights Act issue.
Election law expert Jeffrey Wice calls the approach “a novel one” since New York’s new Voting Rights Act “was not intended to impact congressional redistricting.”
The suit invokes the state VRA and claims racial vote dilution, but proving such a claim is an uphill battle. The plaintiffs would need to show a “high level of racially polarized voting” to justify a new minority district. This threshold may be hard to meet, especially given Malliotakis’s own diverse coalition of supporters.
Nicole Malliotakis may be tough, but her lawyers are dead weight, and everyone in New York politics knows it. While Marc Elias rolls into court with a battleship-sized legal machine, Malliotakis shows up with a couple of overworked, underpowered attorneys who look like they’re billing by the hour and praying for mercy.
Elias has a national war room, unlimited funding, and a record of bending courts to his will.
Malliotakis’s legal team?
They’ve lost more redistricting fights than they’ve won, and they’ve never faced a legal brawler like Elias. In this matchup, the Democrats brought a missile launcher, and the Republicans brought a butter knife. Elias is outgunning them on filings, strategy, manpower, and raw political muscle.
“The basic point here is that they are allowing the New York State Voting Rights Act to determine the lines in a FEDERAL ELECTION,” railed a famed Republican election lawyer who did not wish to be named. “Why this case hasn’t been removed to federal court, or at least attempted to be removed by a chance of venue to Staten Island, is beyond me.”
It makes sense. Trump won Staten Island with over 65% of the vote in 2024. A few weeks ago, Republican Borough President Vito Fossella was re-elected with 68.5% of the vote and a winning margin of over 56,000 votes. If the case remains in the NYS courts, a Supreme Court Justice elected by the people of Richmond County should be the one to decide its political future.
Unless something changes fast, Staten Island’s last Republican seat is walking into a buzz saw. The same crooked New York State judiciary that oversaw Letitia James and Alvin Bragg’s witch hunts will undoubtedly rubber-stamp this partisan map under the pretext of civil rights.
This is the same court system where a Manhattan jury convicted President Trump on a dubious, nonexistent, “Frankenstein” theory of law. In that case, Manhattan prosecutors took a minor paperwork misdemeanor and “concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory.”
“This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, decrying a conviction built on “fallacious legal theories.”
And there’s little faith that the partisan hacks in black robes won’t do it again. And this time, New York’s judiciary has undergone an even more drastic leftward lurch, as Hochul appointed a slew of new liberal judges after the 2022 gerrymander defeat and is driving Cuomo-era jurists into retirement.
Malliotakis warns that the “war” is now in the courts, where Democrats are pressuring judges to do what voters would not, while the New York court system’s reputation for impartiality is already shot.
Yet it’s not a slam dunk for the map’s proponents, even in court. As Wice notes, the case faces “significant legal hurdles.” The state constitution explicitly bans redrawing districts mid-census for partisan gain, and the prior Court of Appeals decision reinforced that the current map (drawn by a neutral special master) should remain in place through 2030.
If judges follow the law and precedent, the lawsuit should fail.
But Democrats are counting on a more activist interpretation – essentially asking the court to declare that Staten Island’s current district is a civil-rights violation and must be torn up. That would set a remarkable precedent: using a state Voting Rights Act (meant for local elections) to reshape a federal congressional map.
It’s a risky strategy, but given the stakes – control of a U.S. House seat – the left is willing to roll the dice in court.
Malliotakis Map Massacre: The Final NYC Republican Seat at Stake
The stakes could not be higher for New York City’s political landscape. If Elias wins this lawsuit, NY-11 as we know it will cease to exist. Staten Island – long proud of its distinct voice in Congress – would be partitioned and absorbed into two overwhelmingly Democratic districts.
The borough’s roughly half-million residents would lose their dedicated representative who champions their specific interests. Instead, they’d be represented mainly through politicians from Manhattan and Brooklyn, for whom Staten Island’s concerns are an afterthought.
As one local Republican lamented, “Staten Island would become just another colony of the Manhattan machine.”
Citywide, New York would effectively lose its only Republican congressmember – possibly forever. Every House seat in NYC would be Democratic, with not a single dissenting voice from the right.
For Democrats, that’s a dream scenario. For the roughly one in five New York City voters who are Republican or lean conservative, it’s an disenfranchising nightmare.
Malliotakis calls it exactly that: “disenfranchisement.”
She notes that nearly 180,000 New Yorkers voted for her in 2022, many of them working-class ethnic minorities from Staten Island and Brooklyn who feel unheard by Manhattan progressives. Tearing those voters’ district apart would effectively nullify their choice. It would hand their representation over to communities with starkly different values and priorities.
“They want a judicial knockout because they can’t win in a fair fight,” Malliotakis warns.
To Malliotakis’s backers, there is a growing sense of deflation and defeat.
“Shit in one hand, and hope in the other. See which one fills up first,” said a well-known Staten Island political personality. “That’s how I feel about the New York State court system and Nicole’s chances.”
Many are still reeling from President Trump’s Manhattan show-trial.
“If New York courts could uphold those bullshit charges against Trump, what’s to stop another partisan hack judge from green-lighting a re-map to take out a Republican congresswoman?” another Staten Islander said. “Nothing. And nothing is what Republicans are going to get. Maybe it’s time to move.”
The war that Governor Hochul promised has truly begun – and Staten Island’s 11th District is the first battlefield. Whether the “Map Massacre” succeeds now hinges on the courts.
Will New York’s judges stick to the law and protect the voters’ chosen district, or will they bless a partisan decapitation of Staten Island’s political identity?
Flight from New York: Fears of a ‘Detroit-on-the-Hudson’
Others in the GOP are asking a grimmer question: Is New York City simply lost? Rather than fight a stacked deck, they suggest a great escape – urging Republicans and fed-up taxpayers to ditch NYC for friendlier ground. The backdrop is an exodus already underway.
In the run-up to socialist Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor, nervous New Yorkers have been fleeing to Florida in droves. Real estate developers in Miami report a surge of New York clients looking to buy homes, spooked by Mamdani’s hard-left agenda.
“People want stability in their lifestyle, the quality of life, taxes, and crime,” said Isaac Toledano, a Florida developer who signed over $100 million in deals with New York buyers in just months.
Mamdani campaigned on sweeping new taxes for the wealthy and policies like rent freezes and city-run grocery stores. That agenda has many high-earners eyeing the exits.
One poll found almost 9% of New Yorkers would leave if Mamdani won – and indeed, between 2018 and 2022, about 150,000 did move to Florida, taking $14 billion in income with them.
Republican lawmakers are amplifying the alarm.
“If you thought the influx of New Yorkers to Florida was extreme during COVID, just wait,” warned Florida Rep. Greg Steube, reacting to Mamdani’s victory.
The fear is that New York City is becoming unlivable for conservatives and entrepreneurs, who will vote with their feet. Without its productive base, the city could face a fiscal death spiral. Observers are already invoking Detroit – the poster child of urban decline – as a cautionary tale.
In Detroit, decades of mismanagement and middle-class flight led to bankruptcy.
“With fewer entrepreneurs and high-earning professionals, New York…may well turn into Detroit-on-the-Hudson,” one economic analyst noted bluntly.
Stagnant growth data lends credence: Florida’s population jumped ~45% since 2000 while New York’s grew just 4.5%, reflecting a steady drain. Some frustrated New Yorkers say the city’s far-left policies are “insane” – prioritizing free services over public safety and punishing success with taxes – and they predict NYC will burn out if nothing changes.
The scenario is stark: a once-great metropolis hollowed out by one-party rule, with Republicans extinct and the tax base eroding.
It’s the outcome Hochul’s fiercest critics warn her “war” will hasten – a New York left to “burn down” in blue flames.
Trump and NYC’s New Mayor: Deal or No Deal?
Into this fray steps an unlikely duo: President Donald Trump and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. The two men could not be more different – Trump, the Republican billionaire icon, and Mamdani, a 34-year-old socialist newcomer– yet both now signal a willingness to talk. Mamdani, fresh off a shock win over establishment rivals, says his top priority is tackling New York’s affordability crisis.
On Monday, he confirmed his team reached out to the White House to set up a face-to-face. He’s ready to meet “anyone who could help” ease the city’s soaring costs.
Trump, remarkably, is also on board. The President revealed that Mamdani made an overture and said, “We’ll work something out” regarding a meeting.
The prospect of a Trump–Mamdani summit has observers buzzing. It could mark a temporary truce between two political opposites who have traded insults for months. Trump spent much of the mayoral campaign pillorying Mamdani – labeling him a “communist,” predicting he’d ruin the city, even musing about deporting the Uganda-born politician despite his U.S. citizenship.
Mamdani, for his part, vowed to “Trump-proof” New York and show America how to defeat Trumpism. Yet he also insists he’ll work with anyone if it “benefited New Yorkers.”
Now, real-life governance is forcing both to the table.
Behind closed doors, this meeting could turn into a high-stakes negotiation. City Hall desperately needs federal help – from public housing funding to post-pandemic economic aid – all of which Trump controls. Mamdani’s challenge is to secure relief without betraying his progressive base.
Trump’s leverage is obvious, but what might he ask in return? This is where speculation runs rampant.
Some Republicans urge Trump to use the sit-down to save NYC’s Republicans from extinction. They suggest Trump demand that Mamdani and New York Democrats back off their partisan onslaught – perhaps by preserving the Staten Island congressional district or shelving plans to let non-citizens vote in city elections.
In exchange, Trump could offer something Mamdani wants. One idea making rounds: drop the push to prosecute Marc Elias or halt federal challenges to New York’s maps as a concession. In essence, Trump would holster his DOJ’s guns in the redistricting war if Mamdani helps rein in the one-party dominance.
It’s a bold gambit – effectively asking a socialist mayor to ensure a place for the GOP in Gotham’s future. Whether Mamdani would even entertain such a deal is uncertain. But Trump is a deal-maker at heart, and even his adversaries know he’ll bargain if he sees an advantage.
The coming weeks will reveal if this odd couple’s cooperation is real or just political theater. New Yorkers of all stripes are watching closely.
Will Governor Hochul’s “war” proceed unabated, drawing federal retaliation and driving out the city’s last Republicans? Or can Trump strike a grand bargain with Mayor-elect Mamdani that defuses the threat and keeps New York from becoming the next Detroit?
In the tabloid drama that is New York politics, anything seems possible. The gloves are indeed off, and the fight for the future of New York City – and its lone Republican stronghold – has only just begun.
Such BS