Top Democrats Jerry Nadler, Carolyn Maloney face off in New York

Two powerful House Democrats from New York City are fighting for political survival in Tuesday’s primary election after a re-drawn district map spurred them to compete for a single seat in Congress.

Incumbent Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, senior liberal lawmakers who each chair prominent House committees, have locked horns in the battle for Manhattan’s newly formed 12th Congressional District.

That reshaped district covers the middle of the island, including the Upper East Side, currently represented by Maloney, and Nadler’s domain on the Upper West Side.

Nadler appeared to hold an edge heading into Election Day. The New York Times and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., both gave him their endorsements. Surveys of the race conducted by Emerson College Polling-Pix11-The Hill showed Nadler extending his lead, with 43% of respondents siding backing and 29% picking Maloney in the most recent edition.

Suraj Patel, who has challenged Maloney in two previous primary elections, is also on the ballot, garnering support from 14% of respondents in the latest Emerson poll.

The two frontrunners, who have represented their adjacent chunks of Manhattan for three decades, are not pulling punches as they fight to hold their seats.

“He said, ‘Step aside, I’m running.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m running too. I’m not leaving,'” Maloney said in a New York Magazine profile of the race. “He said, ‘I’m gonna win.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna win.’ We haven’t spoken since,” she said.

Maloney, 76, has also fanned rumors that Nadler, 75, won’t serve out his full term if elected and that he’s senile and unfit for office — charges Nadler’s campaign has denied.

Nadler has highlighted the differences in their voting records, saying Maloney has been “wrong on very major issues” including her “cowardly” vote for the Patriot Act, New York Magazine reported. Nadler has also made his Jewish faith a central part of his pitch to voters.

Maloney, meanwhile, has sought to center her experiences as a woman in politics while touting her record on social issues — including abortion, a galvanizing topic in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade.

“You cannot send a man to do a woman’s job,” Maloney said in a recent television ad. She has been endorsed by famed attorney and feminist activist Gloria Steinem.

Nadler, 75, currently chairs the House Judiciary Committee, while Maloney, 76, leads the House Oversight Committee.

The new district lines were drawn by a court-appointed third party and approved by a state judge in May, the culmination of an acrimonious redistricting process. Republicans had successfully argued that a Democrat-proposed map, which would have drawn district lines for the next 10 years, was unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

The scrapping of the Democrats’ map led a federal judge to order New York to delay its congressional primary date to Tuesday, Aug. 23, two months later than originally scheduled. The state’s gubernatorial primary,…