Tom Suozzi Flips George Santos Seat, Shrinking House GOP Majority

Tom Suozzi speaks following his special election victory on February 13, 2024 in Woodbury, New York. Photo: Getty Images

In a special election to fill the vacancy left by the expulsion of Republican congressman George Santos, former Democratic congressman Tom Suozzi defeated first-time Republican candidate Mazi Pilip in New York’s Third Congressional District. Souzzi won by a narrow but incontestable margin: 54 percent to 46 percent with 93 percent of the expected vote reported. His win reduces the already-small GOP House majority to three seats. The win continues a streak of strong Democratic performances in special elections since the 2022 midterms.

Suozzi was helped by Santos’s messy exit from Congress and by snowy weather, which disproportionately affected Republican voters who prefer to cast ballots in person on Election Day. Pilip thought widespread unhappiness with crime and with the migrant crisis in the urban-suburban New York district (encompassing a small part of Queens and most of Nassau County) would be her ace in the hole. However, Suozzi closely identified himself with the bipartisan border-security legislation that House Republicans killed last month and has long been considered a party centrist (particularly during his unsuccessful primary challenge to Governor Kathy Hochul in 2022).

Pilip’s unusual biography (she is a Jewish Ethiopian immigrant by way of Israel who once served in the Israeli Defense Forces) was a positive and negative factor in her race. Certainly there were voters post-Santos who wanted more of a known quantity. But her inconsistent relationship with the GOP and the MAGA movement may have been an even bigger problem in a low-turnout special election where the Republican base needed to show up at the polls. Naturally, Donald Trump blamed her defeat on her uncertain attitude about him, making this Election Night comment on Truth Social:

Trump’s right that November could be a new ballgame in the Third District and generally. Turnout patterns in a general election differ from those of a special election — particularly if it doesn’t snow a lot on Election Day. There is also a significant chance that the district lines will be redrawn after the New York Court of Appeals tossed out the current map in December, as Politico reported:

New York’s top court is giving Democrats another shot at drawing congressional lines in 2024, smoothing the path for pickups for the party in a state where they underperformed in 2022 and helped hand House control to Republicans.

A 4-3 decision by Court of Appeals … ordered a bipartisan commission that deadlocked last year to reconvene and produce new draft plans by the end of February.

The Democratic-dominated state Legislature will then vote on the new maps. If the maps are voted down by the commission, legislators would have the power to draw maps themselves.

New York, along with its deep-blue West Coast counterpart, California, will likely offer a host of competitive House races that could determine control of the chamber in 2025. The Suozzi win, while a temporary victory, is a good sign for the Democratic Party’s prospects of flipping the House this fall.