There hasn’t been a Democrat in that seat for 100 years. It’s never even been close. A lot of people just voted for Obama last year who would otherwise never vote Dem.
Technically, the district has been thru dozens of map redrawings and redistrictings so the “seat” actually was occupied by a Dem in 1989. However, areas of the district upstate have probably been Republican for over a hundred years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_23rd_congressional_district