In December, the Representative from New York’s Third Congressional District, George Santos, was expelled from the U.S. House in a 311-114 vote which made him only the sixth-ever member of Congress to be ousted. Santos built his campaign and reputation on a series of lies: he falsely claimed that he was Jewish, a college volleyball star and a graduate of New York University and is alleged to have spent campaign funds on personal services such as Botox injections. As a result of these prevarications and others, Santos’ congressional colleagues ejected him from the House.
On the 13th of February, a special election was held in the Third Congressional District to replace Santos. The Third District is among New York’s most competitive, having favored Democratic candidates in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections but elected Republican congressmen for many of the past twenty years.
The Third District encompasses a chunk of Long Island stretching from Great Neck to Huntington along the island’s north shore, as well as south towards Levittown. In the 1980s, this stretch of Nassau County was so deeply red that Ronald Reagan crowed, “When a Republican dies and goes to heaven, it looks a lot like Nassau County!” In Reagan’s day, it was a rare conservative redoubt in downstate New York, as well as one of the whitest and most affluent districts in the country. Demographics, however, have eroded the Republican advantage in Nassau: as the county has become more diverse, it has become bluer — having voted for Obama twice, Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Yet, at the congressional and local levels, the Third District has been more willing to elect Republicans — even hardline MAGA ones like Santos. That trend has alarmed the Democratic party as potentially indicative of moderate Republicans’ acquiescence to a Trump-led conservative movement — or a reaction to Biden’s unpopularity. Santos’ former seat was seen as not only important for its reflection of national trends (the party that won the 3rd district has won the residency in 16 of the past 20 years) but for its place in the Republicans’ slim 7-seat House majority, which will be contested during this year’s elections. Both parties, wary of framing themselves as too radical, fielded moderate candidates. The Democratic candidate is Tom Suozzi, who formerly held the seat before abandoning office to attack New York Governor Kathy Hochul in an ill-considered primary challenge. Suozzi is a moderate Democrat who eschews progressivism and has an evident relish for tangling with his party’s left wing. The Republicans put forward Mazi Melesa Pilip (a centrist Ethiopian Jew who has seven children with her Ukrainian husband and is registered to vote as a Democrat), hoping that a black candidate would draw voters who might otherwise be wary of the Republican party. In her campaign, Pilip opposed a national abortion ban or cuts to social security, which places her on the Republican party’s left. However, Pilip attacked Suozzi aggressively on immigration and policing – both issues which tend to favor Republicans (though Suozzi argued vociferously for the center-left). Yet, Pilip’s campaign was bruised by inconsistencies in her resume: she claimed to have been a paratrooper for the Israel Defense Forces, when in fact she was a logistician for the IDF’s weapons supply arm. Suozzi drew a comparison between Pilip and Santos, from whose disgrace the district continues to reel.
Suozzi won the election on the 13th by an 8-point margin, beating Pilip by 13,000 votes. Suozzi’s success tentatively indicates that a moderate, experienced Democrat can successfully confront conservatives on issues where the Republican party typically enjoys the high ground. Democratic strategists have crowed that, in sixteen of the last twenty years, the party that won the 3rd district has also won the presidency. However, arguing that the 3rd district is a bellwether for national trends would be a mistake. The exceptional nature of Rep. Santos’ chicanery lent Suozzi an advantage that Democrats will not have in the national elections. The district’s moderate nature is also at odds with trends in much of the United States. Democrats should be heartened by their victory in the 3rd district, which places them within striking distance of the Republican majority. However, claiming an inevitable victory at the national level, as theorists are wont to do, is a mistake.
