‘This Stings’: New York Redistricting Forces Out Progressive Hopeful Rana Abdelhamid

Warning that the court-ordered redrawing of New York’s congressional map has already left marginalized communities in the state with less representation, grassroots organizer Rana Abdelhamid on Tuesday announced that she was ending her campaign in the state’s 12th District because the new district boundaries cut her off from the communities she hopes to represent.

“Because my community and I were cut out of our district, we were left with no other choice,” Abdelhamid said in a statement. “The new NY-12, which was drawn through an undemocratic process, no longer includes Queens or Brooklyn.”

Before Acting State Supreme Court Justice Patrick McCallister, a Republican, approved the new map earlier this month, New York’s 12th District included part of the diverse Queens neighborhood of Astoria, where Abdelhamid was raised as the daughter of Egyptian immigrants.

The new map stretches from Midtown to upper Manhattan, pitting Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who has represented the 12th District since 2013, against Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Both Democrats have served in Congress since 1993.

To continue her bid to represent her community, Abdelhamid would have to run against a fellow progressive—either Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 14th District or Nydia Velázquez in the 7th.

“The GOP-drawn redistricting map foisted on New Yorkers didn’t just pit incumbents against one another, it cut the knees out from really impressive young progressive candidates,” said Jordan Zakarin, a reporter and producer for More Perfect Union, a media outlet focused on organized labor and worker rights.

The redistricting process diluted “our opportunity for representation and political power,” Abdelhamid said of her community, which includes “working class, Black and brown, Muslim and Arab communities of interest.”

Had Abdelhamid won a congressional seat, the staunch progressive who backs Medicare for All and the Green New Deal would have been the first Egyptian-American in Congress and the first Muslim member to represent New York City.

“For a community with no representation in New York City politics, for a community that was harassed and profiled by law enforcement for years, a community that continues to be gentrified, whose story is barely told, this glimpse of representation was a dream,” Abdelhamid said.

The founder of a non-profit which trains women in self defense, political organizing, and financial literacy, Abdelhamid focused her campaign on investing in public housing, demilitarizing police forces, strengthening Medicare and expanding the program to all Americans, and other economic and racial justice initiatives.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who supported Abdelhamid’s campaign told Gothamist that New York Democrats who are “hoping to preserve control of the House” are “using gerrymandering to institutionalize their partisan advantage” just as Republicans are.

Abdelhamid pledged to continue working to represent her community, saying, “This is not the end of our time in politics, but only the beginning. We have a lot of work to do.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Julia Conley.