A brutal redistricting process that left state Democrats scrambling to survive. A series of state primaries that put progressives and moderates at each other’s throats. A gubernatorial race where the Democrat won by only a fraction of the traditional margin. And Democrats losing all but one of their competitive races for the House.
That has been the reality for New York Democrats in recent months. But over the past two weeks, a new pain point emerged: George Santos’ spectacular lies.
Santos, one of the Republicans who won one of those House seats, appears to be a serial fabulist. He lied about huge swaths of his resume. He lied about his education. He lied about his work experience. He lied about his heritage.
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He did not graduate from college, as he said he did, or attend the prestigious New York prep school Horace Mann, as he claimed. He did not work for Goldman Sachs or CitiBank, as he told voters. And despite repeatedly claiming he was Jewish—or, at least, “Jew-ish”—it’s clear he was lying about that, too.
Every day, there seems to be a new revelation about the extent of Santos’ lying. Just on Wednesday, it surfaced that Santos falsely claimed to be half-Black, claimed his mother died on 9/11 and then claimed she died in December 2016, and potentially broke campaign finance law by lending his campaign $700,000 from a corporate account.
On Thursday, video emerged of Santos claiming he once had a brain tumor—yet another supposed lie.
And despite most of Santos’ deceit hiding in plain sight, Democrats missed it all, which has led to many state Democrats demanding to know who dropped the ball on exposing Santos before the midterm elections.
It’s a situation that’s come apart at the seams—disintegrating into finger-pointing, soul-searching, and calls for change in a state that’s long been a Democratic stronghold.
“We’re at a point where we’ve been in this fish tank that isn’t circulating anymore. It isn’t working anymore, for a long time. And this latest revelation with George Santos—who ran twice, this is not his first run, as you know—for the seat has just said everything we need to know,” said Lindsey Boylan, a New York Democratic activist and former congressional candidate.
Boylan, who was also a whistleblower against Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), is among a wing of New York Democrats publicly calling for a shift in strategy. She believes the New York State Democratic Party, among others, hasn’t showed up enough, hasn’t spent correctly, hasn’t been an effective source of aid to candidates in close contests.
Others have pointed to New York’s Democratic machine writ large—dubbing the institution as plagued by ineffective strategy and mismanaged campaigns.
“If we’re losing a race to George Santos, New York Democrats need to ask what’s wrong with how we’re running campaigns. This is frankly embarrassing and absolutely cannot happen again,” state Sen. Jessica Ramos (D) wrote in a tweet.
“Just wondering if anyone in New York politics, responsible for running campaigns or political parties, is doing their job?” wrote state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (D), who lost a high-profile primary against Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) earlier this year. Maloney ultimately lost his re-election bid to Republican Mike Lawler.
“So not a damn thing he touted about himself was factual? In the county ‘led’ by [New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs], no less. Maybe spend a little less time demonizing progressives and a little more doing oppo research on republicans running in your county?” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D) posted.
Jacobs, a Cuomo administration holdover, had already faced ire from the left in the wake of the election results. But that backlash has only grown amid questions of whether state party leadership adequately researched or mounted opposition against Santos as a challenger against Democratic nominee Robert Zimmerman.
Santos and Zimmerman were running in the seat vacated by Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who chose to run for governor instead.
Some have also questioned why Zimmerman’s campaign itself didn’t invest, at least to the public’s knowledge, in opposition research on Santos.
Zimmerman didn’t respond to a request for an interview sent to his company’s email, but in the days since the Santos revelations broke, Zimmerman has called on the congressman-elect to resign and to face him again in a special election.
Santos has said he intends to complete his swearing-in on Jan. 3 and to serve out his term, even as he’s admitted to “embellishing” his resume, as if it was simply a false claim of knowing how to work Microsoft Excel.
“Certainly the questions are being asked—and they're not just being asked by folks, by progressive Democrats. We're hearing mainstream, centrist Democrats rumbling as well… there’s got to be some accountability for what has gone on,” said Shoshana Hershkowitz, founder of Suffolk Progressives in New York and a member of the push to replace Jacobs as state-party chair.
It’s difficult to know whether New York Democrats—or Democrats nationally—really didn’t know or act on the Santos revelations before the election. With most opposition research, political operatives will work to place their newly found info with reporters for publication. But reporters are also tasked with cross-checking that information and sometimes adding to it. It can take time, especially when dealing with the mountain of information The New York Times ultimately unveiled about the congressman-elect.
As many have pointed out, this is also the sort of story local news could have exposed. But with local media in and outside of New York run down by inadequate funding and staffing, longtime Long Island publications were innately less likely to catch wind of Santos’ falsehoods.
In theory, Democrats could have tried to place opposition research exposing Santos before the election. But unless someone comes forward claiming they did just that, there’s no way to know whether Democrats did just that.
Even if they did—a big if, given the scale of Santos’ lies—Democrats would have still failed to place the opposition research with a publication that was willing to publish it.
On a broader scale, New York Democrats failed at messaging this cycle. Republicans berated them over crime and made major inroads in the traditionally blue state.
Even in the safest New York suburbs, GOP candidates made crime a key talking point. And while that messaging was effective far beyond New York’s borders, New York Democrats are trying to figure out why it worked better in their state than others.
The whole situation—Santos, Democratic losses in general, a tortured redistricting process, and a Democratic political machine that appears to be breaking down—is causing Democrats in the Empire State to do some reflecting.
“I feel just profoundly disappointed,” said Hershkowitz. “I think that we could be doing so much better here in New York. I don’t even mean just electorally. We could be doing so much more to deliver for the people who need government to work for them in New York. And I think that the parties, both parties, in one degree or another, have lost sight of what needs to be done.”
