NEW YORK — New York almost single-handedly cost Democrats their House majority in last fall’s midterm elections. Now a leading Democratic group is preparing to pour record sums into the state, in hopes it can deliver the party back to power next year.

House Majority PAC, the main super political action committee aligned with congressional Democrats, will unveil a first-of-its-kind, $45 million fund this week dedicated to winning back four seats Republicans flipped in New York and targeting two other competitive districts. Republicans currently control the chamber by only a five-seat margin.

The planned Democratic infusion would dwarf outside spending in the state in recent election cycles and reflects just how central traditionally blue New York has become to the national House battlefield for both parties. Of the 18 districts nationwide that President Joe Biden won in 2020 that are now represented by Republicans, New York is home to six.

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“The path to the majority runs through New York,” Mike Smith, the group’s president, said in an interview outlining its plans. “It’s not just us seeing it. It is the Republican Party seeing it. It’s every donor around the country seeing it.”

The announcement comes amid bitter Democratic infighting over how to regroup from last year’s whiplash elections. While the party outperformed expectations nationally, New York was a glaring outlier. On Election Day, Republicans here harnessed fears about rising crime and one-party Democratic rule to run a nearly clean sweep through competitive districts and secure their majority.

Smith said his group was still raising the funds but planned to move unusually early in the election cycle to try to reshape how voters view those six newly elected Republicans, who represent districts in Long Island, the Hudson Valley and Syracuse. Many of them succeeded in portraying themselves as common sense moderates in suburban territory, but they will enter a presidential election year, when Democrats historically turn out in higher numbers, as among the most endangered Republicans in the country.

Among Democrats’ best cudgels may be one of those freshmen, Rep. George Santos, the Republican who flipped a suburban Long Island seat only to watch his resume unravel into a series of elaborate lies and potential frauds.

“These freshman Republicans have no real track record to run on, other than what’s happening in the national space,” Smith said. “And that’s George Santos, Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene and the most extreme elements.”

That effort is almost certain to set off a major spending war with Republicans, whose main super PAC has consistently outraised and outspent House Majority PAC nationally. In New York, the Democratic group spent around $13 million last year, while Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund pumped in at least $21 million.

Unlike traditional candidates or party committees, dark-money groups can raise and spend unlimited sums of money.

The Congressional Leadership Fund has yet to detail its strategy for 2024. But Tuesday, several vulnerable House Republicans — Santos not among them — established a new joint fundraising committee named “New York Majority Makers,” designed to help bundle smaller contributions to protect their seats.

And in a sign of their significance to party leaders, Speaker Kevin McCarthy was scheduled to make an early fundraising stop New York in March. The event will help at least one at-risk incumbent build an early fundraising advantage while Democrats are still recruiting challengers.

Cash is only one factor that could tip the balance of power. To be successful, Democrats will also have to revamp their own image in certain parts of New York where voters rejected them last fall.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the party’s new House leader, has called for a careful review of what went wrong. But for now, the party’s progressive and moderate wings have vastly different prescriptions on how to address concerns about public safety and rising living costs that are especially acute here. The party’s left flank has spent months agitating to remove the more moderate chair of the state party, Jay Jacobs, who they believe has overseen a moribund organization.

In the interview, Smith said Democrats had let Republican candidates dominate the conversation around crime last year, which “definitely hurt us.”

“There is no getting around the top-of-the-ticket concerns,” he said, referring to the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, who waited until the campaign’s final weeks to aggressively counter Republicans’ attacks on the issue and won by a narrower-than-expected margin. “That is a big part of how we got to where we are today.”

Still, at least on paper, many of the districts could easily change hands in a presidential election year, when Democrats historically turn out in higher numbers.

In the suburbs of Westchester and Rockland counties, Rep. Michael Lawler defeated his Democratic opponent by less than 1 percentage point last fall by running as a moderate focused on issues such as crime and inflation. Now he has to win another term in a district that Biden won by 10 points in 2020 and where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-2.

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, another relative centrist, faces similarly daunting numbers on the South Shore of Long Island, where a wave of Republican enthusiasm — and depressed turnout by Black voters — helped him narrowly win a district Biden won by 14 points.

Reps. Brandon Williams and Marc Molinaro will be defending Democratic-leaning districts around Syracuse and in the Hudson Valley. Rep. Nick LaLota likely faces an easier race on the East End of Long Island, which narrowly voted for Biden but has been friendly ground to Republican congressional candidates for a decade now.

And then there is Santos, who has not indicated clearly whether he will seek a second term in a district that Biden won by 8 points. Nearly every other New York Republican freshman has called on him to resign, and local party leaders have vowed to back a primary challenger.

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