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By Chris Smith
George Santos said he will not vote in next week’s special election to decide his replacement in Congress. “I don’t vote for registered Democrats,” he told me. Saints acting according to precept is just a small hint of what this festival is like. Other? First, why it’s going down: In December, Santos became the sixth member of the U. S. House of Representatives to be expelled. This vote follows the former New York congressman’s indictment on 23 federal charges, including wire fraud and money laundering, stemming from his successful 2022 campaign, and amid a glut of stories detailing his outlandish biographical elaborations and fictions (he has stated he does not blame all charges).
Still, Santos is rarely making it up when he says the two leading contenders for his old seat, representing New York’s Third Congressional District, are registered Democrats, adding Republican candidate Mazi Pilip, who has said she would welcome a bell. -In December, local Republican Party leaders chose her as their candidate to succeed Santos. She was born in Ethiopia and later immigrated to Israel with her family. At age 18, Pilip, who is Jewish, joined the Israel Defense Forces and served as a gunsmith in the parachute unit. She moved to Long Island after marrying a Ukrainian-American doctor, who was also Jewish, and became the mother of seven children. In 2021, she elected to the Nassau County Legislature on the Republican line: as a registered Democrat, a party association that has not changed.
Pilip found it difficult to locate the election campaign, held only a handful of press meetings, and agreed to only a few interviews. His opponent, who is much more visible, is by far the ultimate traditional detail of the race. Tom Suozzi is a second long-generation politician from Long Island who has held public office for most of his adult life, beginning in 1993 as mayor of Glen Cove, a position he previously held through his father and uncle. Suozzi served three terms in Congress from the Third District, opting not to run for office in 2022 and running for governor of New York, a number one Democratic pursuit that only succeeded in angering incumbent Speaker Kathy Hochul.
On the Democratic spectrum, Suozzi, 61, is a solid moderate, even somewhat conservative—though he may not be far enough to the right in the current electoral context. New York’s Republicans have won a string of recent suburban races by hyping fear of crime, and now they’ve made the congressional race a referendum on the region’s very real immigration crisis. Stories about the beating of two New York City cops and about the NYPD’s raid of an alleged migrant crime ring have dominated conversation in the district recently. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the largest House Republican super PAC, has capitalized on the charged atmosphere by running a TV ad that includes a clip of Suozzi saying, during a 2022 gubernatorial debate: “I kicked ICE out of Nassau County.”
Suozzi tells me that his 2022 comment referred to the multiple botched arrests made by U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2007 and that he has no challenge with the company operating on Long Island today. “But because Republicans are politicizing the bipartisan deal in the Senate, we’re putting Israel in a threat first and foremost. Second, we keep the border open. And thirdly, we are empowering [Vladimir] Putin. Do all the things that other people care about.
But the political chaos in Washington may make things better for his campaign. “If there’s any hope for Tom Suozzi, I think it lies in the fact that Republicans have screwed up immigration in the last couple of weeks,” says a Democratic strategist from New York. “They gave him a wonderful ability to be like someone who believes there are solutions. “Another Democratic activist, who knows the district very well, which covers part of Queens and north-central Long Island, says he advocates for Suozzi’s victory; an immigration-motivated Suozzi loss might not be bad for the district. “Democrats, in the most Democratic districts, have told their legislators that they don’t see why new immigrants get benefits when they don’t,” the strategist says. “It’s frustrating because, as a component, we can’t speak intelligently about this issue and it’s shameful that we’ve wasted so much money. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing globally to sacrifice a seat in the House so that the component can take a beating at the border before November. “
The stakes are high. Party margins in the House are so narrow that MPs are forced to leave the hospital to vote. Meanwhile, Pilip and Suozzi will debate for the first and only time on Thursday night. Democrats have the merit of about 60,000 voters in the district, but there is an even larger bloc of unaffiliated voters, and with a likely low turnout, the final results are expected to be close. Whoever wins will have to run for a full term in November. None of this, says Santos, will motivate voters: “I don’t dare do it. However, he adds that if he were to run again, he would win.
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