3) Crack Buffalo a bit, Higgins is well entrenched and could survive a less blue district.
It seems like it's maybe possible to get two nominally-D WNY seats... I was able to do it in a way that wasn't too ugly by putting Niagara, Orleans, and Genesee in one seat, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Wyoming, and most of Allegany in the other. The first seat included Buffalo west of Main, the South Campus of UB, the Northtowns due east of Grand Island, Lancaster, and Alden, and the second included the remainder. The problem is that both seats average a margin of 0.20% for Dem over Rep according to the DRA's composite score. That doesn't seem safe enough, incumbency aside.
