Yesterday, Russell Berman called the NY-03 congressional special election to replace George Santos (in 4 days) the start of the Democrats’ campaign to retake Congress. I know Tom Suozzi well enough to be pretty sure the headline— The Special Election That Could Give Democrats Hope for November— gave him agita when he saw it. He wants this race to be strictly about him and Mazi Pilip, not about Democrats vs Republicans. In the one debate she agreed to participate in, yesterday, she stumbled all over herself and showed anyone who was listening that she's as ill-prepared to represent the people in the district as George Santos was.
Even though, on paper, NY-03 (northeast Queens and a big swath of Nassau County) has a D+7 partisan lean— and even though Biden won the district by just over 8 points— the voters there have been very surly lately. In 2020, Suozzi easily beat Santos 208,555 (55.9%) to 161,931 (43.4%) but 2 years later, with Suozzi campaigning for governor instead, Santos beat Democrat Robert Zimmerman 145,824 (53.8%) to 125,404 (46.2%). And since then, armed with knee-jerk GOP scare tactics about crime and immigrants, Republicans have been winning local elections all over Long Island. Not just that, Kathy Hochul lost Nassau County in the general election— badly, by almost 11 points. [UPDATE: The Emerson poll that was released last night shows Suozzi winning 50-47% among liklely voters-- and when undecideds are pushed, it's Suozzi 52-48%.]
New private polling shows a generic Republican would beat a generic Democrat for Congress in NY-03 today. The same poll shows that Suozzi is going to win, albeit more narrowly than he should against such a wreck of a GOP candidate… and on top of how badly they were collectively embarrassed for having voted for Santos. But Suozzi isn’t a generic Democrat and, a former mayor and County Executive and congressman, he’s well know to the voters— as well as well-liked. He’s also running one of the best campaigns I’vee seen anyone run for Congress in a decade. The Democrats should make him DCCC Chair.
A public poll from Siena released yesterday shows Suozzi leading by 4 points among likely voters— 48-44%, interesting because the same voters say they would give Trump a 4 point edge over Biden! Sabato’s Crystal Ball is still calling it a tossup. I grew up on Long Island and returned for college. I have a bet with a top consultant about the outcome. He says Suozzi by 2. I say Suozzi by 5.
Now, back to Berman, who reported that “Officials in both parties give Suozzi a slight edge; he has more money and is much better known than his GOP opponent, Mazi Pilip, a county legislator who spent her teenage years in Israel and served in the Israeli Defense Forces. But Suozzi is trying to run as an underdog, shunning a Democratic brand that he believes has been soiled on Long Island by voter frustration with the migrant crisis, the high cost of living, and turmoil overseas. He’s kept his distance from President Joe Biden, who, according to both Democratic and Republican strategists, is no more popular in the district than Trump. ‘If I run my campaign to say, I’m Tom Suozzi. I’m the Democrat, and my opponent’s the Republican, I lose this race,’ Suozzi said at a rally before members of the carpenters’ union on Saturday.”
Like other Democrats, Suozzi is emphasizing his support for abortion rights, an issue that has helped the party limit GOP gains since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But he’s also pitching himself as a bipartisan dealmaker— his campaign slogan is “Let’s fix this!” Suozzi is betting that voters are angered as much by congressional inaction on issues such as immigration and border security as they are by Biden or his policies. If he’s right, the GOP’s rejection this week of a bipartisan border deal that its leaders had initially demanded will play into his hands.
Whether Suozzi’s campaign proves effective next week will offer clues about the swing districts that could determine control of Congress. A win could point the way for Democratic candidates to redirect attacks on Biden’s record and ease fears that the border impasse could be an insurmountable liability this fall. But his defeat in a district that ought to be winnable for Democrats would suggest that the party is in real trouble as the general election begins.
…Republican leaders are relying on Biden’s unpopularity and their party’s prodigious turnout machine to keep the seat. They picked Pilip as their candidate—the special election had no primary—in part because in the aftermath of October 7, they hoped that her connection to Israel would resonate in a district where about 20 percent of the electorate is Jewish. (Suozzi is also a longtime supporter of Israel. Within a week of Pilip’s selection, he traveled there to meet with the families of hostages held by Hamas.)
With only a few exceptions, Pilip has kept a low profile for a political newcomer. She’s agreed to just one debate with Suozzi, three days before the election, and she hasn’t held many publicly promoted campaign events. (Her campaign did not make her available for an interview.) Nassau County Republicans scheduled their biggest rally of the election for a Saturday, when Pilip, who observes the Sabbath, would not be able to attend. She filmed a short video to be played in her absence. “The strategy is intentional,” Steve Israel, a Democrat who represented the third district in the House for 16 years, told me. “She is untested, and Republicans fear that she will say something that could effectively lose the election. They’d rather take their lumps for hiding her.”
That approach could be risky given the district’s experience with Santos. “We’ve already had someone we didn’t know. We don’t want that again,” Judi Bosworth, a Democratic former town supervisor, said as she campaigned with Suozzi.
Abortion has been a central issue in the race; Democratic ads have warned that a vote for Pilip could lead to a national ban. But in the closing weeks, the migrant crisis has come to the fore. GOP commercials blame Suozzi and Biden for the “invasion” at the southern border, and Suozzi has criticized Pilip for opposing the bipartisan border-security deal unveiled this week in the Senate. Although national issues are dominating the race, neither candidate wants to be associated with their party’s leaders in Washington. Pilip, until recently a registered Democrat, has declined to say whether she voted for Trump in 2020 and has yet to endorse his comeback bid. When House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke at a rally for Suozzi on Saturday, the Democrat’s campaign did not invite the press. The day before, the Pilip campaign kept quiet about an appearance by Speaker Mike Johnson.
The outcome next week could have an immediate impact in the narrowly divided House, where Republicans have only a three-vote majority. Earlier this week, Republicans fell just one vote short of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; a Suozzi victory would likely keep it on hold, at least for the time being. But Suozzi wants to make a deeper impression in a second stint in Congress. He has campaigned not as a dispassionate centrist but as an impatient negotiator anxious to get back to the bargaining table.
He had wanted a bigger job altogether, but he assured me that he would not be bored by a return to the House. I asked him what message his victory would send. He rattled off a list of bipartisan deals he wants to strike— on the border, Ukraine, housing, climate change, and more. “If I win,” he said, “I can go to my colleagues in Washington and say, ‘Wake up. This is what the people want.’”
And, in all likelihood, this is probably the last chance to help Suozzi's Get Out the Vote effort. The money won't be wasted; he knows exactly what he's doing and how to win.
UPDATE: Suozzi won-- by a lot more than anyone thought he would.