Former Democratic congressman Tom Suozzi won a high-profile special House election in New York on Tuesday, narrowing the Republican majority in Washington and potentially running in key suburban battleground districts in November. He provided the party with a strategy.
His victory in Queens and Long Island avenges a year of humiliation inflicted by the seat's former occupier, George Santos, and gives Republicans wins in nearly every major election on Long Island since 2021. This stopped the flow.
Mr. Suozzi, 61, is a serious contender for Republican candidates in a race that is an expensive prelude to many battles expected to dominate November's general election, particularly over the influx of migrants at the border and in New York City. – Evaded Mr. Pilip.
Mr. Suozzi, known as a centrist, has distanced himself from the party, calling for tougher policies at the border and vowing to work with Republicans to fix the broken immigration system. Polls suggested that the independent approach helped narrow Mr. Pillip's lead on the issue as Democratic super PACs flooded him with ads attacking him for being anti-abortion.
In the end, a rare snowstorm blanketed Long Island on Election Day, turning the race into a classic local battle over turnout. The 11th-hour twist likely helped Democrats, who had turned out large numbers of early votes despite Republicans' vaunted Nassau County strength.
With 52% of votes counted, Suozzi received 59% of the vote and Pilip 41%, according to the Associated Press. The gap was expected to narrow as the count progressed.
Suozzi's return will have an immediate impact in Washington. House Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose just two votes on partisan bills once he takes his seat, but the margin is significant and could limit Republicans' election-year legislative agenda.
The victory was personal vindication for Mr. Suozzi, an ambitious politician who has seen his fortune rise and fall over more than 30 years in office. He gave up his three-term House seat to run for governor of New York in 2022, but finished a distant third in the Democratic primary.
The cost of that decision became clearer after Mr. Santos was exposed as a serial liar and ultimately indicted by federal prosecutors on 23 criminal counts, including campaign fraud. The House of Representatives expelled him in December after nearly a year in office.
Republicans in New York and Washington always knew the race to replace Mr. Santos would be a bit tough, given the Democrats' modest advantage among registered voters and Mr. Suozzi's name recognition. But party leaders were confident they could hold onto seats that include some of the country's wealthiest suburban enclaves.
There was little reason to believe the results would change former President Donald J. Trump's determination to make immigration a mainstay of his campaign.
But Republican leaders and strategists planning House and Senate races will likely be forced to reconsider the potential border issues that Mr. Pillip made a centerpiece of his campaign.
The issue has been particularly resonant here in the New York City suburbs, where Democrats privately warned in the final weeks of the campaign that it could be enough to defeat Mr. Suozzi. Voters saw daily headlines about a surge in illegal border crossings and more than 170,000 immigrants arriving in New York. Just a week before Election Day, the New York City police chief warned that a “wave of immigrant crime” was “invading” the city.
But rather than dismissing it as an issue that favors Republicans, Mr. Suozzi has made the immigration crisis a daily focus, along with cutting taxes, fighting crime and protecting abortion rights. He called on Biden to temporarily close the southern border, trying to show voters that Biden also recognizes the problem and wants to solve it.
That's why Suozzi said Pilip joined his party earlier this month to denounce a bipartisan border deal that included many of the provisions his party had called for, including speeding deportations and making it harder to apply for asylum. I went on the offensive.
“MS. Pilip points out that there is a problem! A problem! A problem!” he said in the race's only debate. “But she doesn't have a solution.”
Voters took notice.
“He's someone who doesn't have to start from scratch,” said Rachel Ocampo, 36, Queen's health care communications director. “He has experience and knows how to deal with local and federal issues.”
Mr. Suozzi tried to draw that contrast one after another. He portrayed himself as a veteran ready to find solutions, restoring the sacred full state and local tax deduction for suburban homeowners and defending Israel in the midst of its war with Hamas. Ta.
Republicans chose Pilip in a virtually tested position, even though her policy positions were little known and she had little experience navigating nationally scrutinized campaigns. Even though it wasn't. It was a gamble that her life as an Ethiopian-born former Israeli soldier would be perfect for the political moment.
However, Pilip's inexperience was exposed throughout his campaign. She held very few public campaign events and declined invitations to forums or debates that would introduce her to her voters. At the rallies she attended, Republicans repeatedly raised their voices, leaving the moderators struggling to articulate their positions on key issues such as abortion and gun rights.
Although Mr. Suozzi did not make these issues the focus of his message, the Democratic Party's main House campaign committee and House super PAC exploited the ambiguity of Mr. Pilip's position and sent over $10 million in attack ads on abortion. I buried the dollar in her. In the end, Democrats outspent Republicans by 2 to 1 in spending on TV appearances.
Suozzi then attacked Pilip over her evasive behavior and qualifications, suggesting she was untested or unprepared for such an important role.
“How can you run for Congress in this post-George Santos world without being completely transparent?” he demanded on the debate stage.
Mr Pilip, who had a forced break with Mr Santos a year ago, sought to reassure voters that he was a model of personal and public ethics. Many voters ultimately concluded that she was too dangerous.
“We can't let someone like Santos in again,” IT worker Pierre Batanapradit said Saturday in Bayside, Queens, voting for Suozzi. “We can't let something like that happen again.”
But after weeks of campaigning, and with both parties rushing to get their votes out from homebound voters, it was the most local issue of all, the snowstorm, that shocked the final days of the campaign.
Here on Long Island, we are a suburban region with a history of mixed politics and public service, rather than selectively paving the way for voters by the Republicans who control Nassau County government and each of its three townships. The Democratic Party had its doubts.
“Obviously we're concerned about where they're going to plow the roads,” state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs said Monday.
Bruce Blakeman, Nassau County's top Republican, said he was “personally upset” that Democrats would question the administration's integrity and vowed to clean up the streets fairly.
That clearly wasn't enough for Republicans.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republicans' main super PAC, has hired private snowplows to more quickly clear snow from the party's best-suited district areas, a spokesperson said.
In the end, it wasn't enough to close the gap.
Ellen Yang and Nate Schweber Contributed to the report.
