Democrats try to flip four Republican-held seats in southern Brooklyn including the Senate seat that cost them a veto-proof majority

Democrats are trying to flip four Republican-held state legislative seats in southern Brooklyn on Tuesday, in the 17th State Senate District and the 45th, 46th and 49th Assembly districts. The races cover parts of Coney Island, Bay Ridge, Gravesend, Bensonhurst and Sunset Park, a stretch that Hell Gate reported has swung to the right in recent years.

Only one of the four is a Senate seat, and it is the one where Democrats lost their veto-proof majority. Democrats hold 41 of the state Senate’s 63 seats, one short of a supermajority, Spectrum News reported in September, and the party lost that margin in 2024 when Republican Stephen Chan unseated state Sen. Iwen Chu in the 17th District, according to Spectrum News and City & State. Chan won 30,868 votes to Chu’s 25,364, according to certified Board of Elections results. In the Assembly, Democrats already hold 103 of 150 seats, more than the 100 needed to override a governor’s veto, according to Ballotpedia.

Featured image: Photos: Chris McCreight campaign (top left); Marc A. Hermann/MTA, CC BY 4.0 (top right); Chris Sampson via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (background). Composite by Bushwick Daily