Just over a year after George Santos was sworn into office, the Democrat who first opened the alleged fraudster’s path to Congress has successfully won back his old district on Long Island.
In a special election held on Tuesday as a snowstorm bore down on the Northeast, former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) defeated Republican candidate Mazi Pilip, according to projections from the Associated Press and CNN.
Suozzi, who represented this Long Island and Queens-based district for three terms before pursuing a failed run for governor in 2022, will return to Capitol Hill having re-captured the turf that Santos surprisingly flipped that midterm year.
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The representative-elect had just two words for his supporters while speaking at a boisterous victory party Tuesday night: “Thank God.”
“Despite all the attacks, despite all the lies—Suozzi and the Squad, Godfather of the border crisis, Sanctuary Suozzi—despite the vaunted Nassau County Republican Machine, we won!” he added.
The victory couldn’t come at a better time for House Democrats—or at a worse time for House Republicans, who were already failing to function under razor-thin margins that Suozzi just made even thinner.
The previous week illustrated the GOP’s dire straits. A Republican-led effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas fell embarrassingly short with one Republican absence and three defections. Santos taunted Republicans for their humiliating impeachment failure with a social media post depicting the deadlocked vote tally and the caption: “Miss me yet?”
But Republicans were aware of that risk when nearly half of the GOP conference—led by New York Republicans—joined with Democrats to expel Santos from Congress last December, sparking the special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
The ouster set off a fiercely fought campaign in one of the most competitive districts in the country. Just for the special election, New York party leaders had the power to select their candidates, bypassing the primary election process.
Democrats selected Suozzi after Gov. Kathy Hochul (D)—once his 2022 gubernatorial opponent—backed him despite their testy personal relationship. Republican campaign brass tapped Pilip—an Ethiopian-born Jew who served in the Israeli military—though she was relatively new to the Long Island political scene. She began serving in the Nassau County Legislature in 2022.
Given the stakes for House control, both parties invested heavily in the special election, dropping eye-popping amounts of cash for such a brief campaign. Ad spending reached $22 million, with Democrats shelling out $13.8 million and Republicans’ spending $8.1 million. Both Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) quietly visited the district in the run-up to election day.
The Suozzi victory gives Democrats demonstrable momentum as the 2024 campaign cycle kicks into full swing. Though President Joe Biden carried the 3rd District by 8 percentage points in 2020, Santos flipped it red amid a slew of Republican victories on Long Island during the 2022 midterms.
Voters' decision to deliver Santos’ old seat back to Suozzi gives Democrats a glimmer of hope that they are on the right track to reclaim the House come November.
In particular, Democrats might breathe easier now when it comes to one of their key political vulnerabilities: immigration, which dominated both Suozzi and Pilip’s campaign messaging. Since last year, New York City has processed over 150,000 migrants, costing $2.4 billion and consuming local media coverage.
Republicans across the country have spent this campaign season hammering Democrats and the Biden administration for weak border enforcement policies. Pilip and the House Republicans’ campaign arm tried to deploy this GOP playbook, dropping ads that cast her as tough on the border.
But Congress’ recent border policy drama complicated Pilip’s narrative. House Republicans dashed their own calls for immigration restriction by tanking a bipartisan Senate deal after former President Donald Trump came out against the agreement. Some Republicans have even admitted to naked political maneuvering to keep Biden from touting a border accomplishment on the campaign trail.
Meanwhile, Suozzi—known as a centrist Democrat during his stint in the House—boasted his own border enforcement bona fides. In one ad, for example, Suozzi highlighted a 2018 vote to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles deportation of undocumented migrants.
Suozzi and Pilip also focused on courting the district’s significant bloc of Jewish voters, many of whom are seeking support for Israel as its war with Hamas rages on.
Still, even before the results were in, plenty of political pundits cautioned against overlearning too many broader lessons from the race. In many ways, Suozzi was functionally an incumbent, having held the seat from 2017 to 2023, making him an unusually strong candidate for an open seat race.
In a district fed up with Santos, Pilip also struggled to break out of the former congressman’s sketchy shadow. Suozzi seized on Pilip’s mysterious presidential election voting record and party affiliation to dub her “George Santos 2.0.”
Plus, a powerful Nor’easter storm dumped inches of snow on the district Tuesday, closing schools and undoubtedly deterring turnout. Republicans banking on a big election day turnout feared that snow was such an impediment for voters that the House GOP’s super PAC—the Congressional Leadership Fund—hired companies to plow public streets around voting locations.
While Suozzi vowed to run for the November general election no matter the result on Tuesday, it’s unclear if Pilip will continue her campaign—which would require her to win a primary election in June.
