Democratic candidate Tom Suozzi won the special election to replace former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, dealing a blow to House Republicans and reducing their already slim majority to just two seats.
The Associated Press called the race in Suozzi’s favor just over an hour after the polls closed at 9 p.m. With 69% of the ballots counted, Suozzi led Republican challenger Mazi Pilip 56% to 44%. The win brings an end to a contentious campaign that attracted nationwide attention as it offered Democrats an opportunity to pick up a key House seat months before the November election.
“Thank God!” Suozzi said as he took the stage in his victory night party. His celebration, however, was interrupted by anti-Israel protesters who accused the longtime politician of supporting “genocide.”
Suozzi, who ran as a centrist Democrat seeking to find solutions to the immigration crisis and more, pledged to get to work in Washington and break the divide.
“There are divisions in our country where people can’t even talk to each other. All they can do is yell and scream at each other. And that’s not the answer to the problems we face in our country,” Suozzi said, referencing the protesters calling for a Gaza ceasefire. “The answer is to try and bring people of goodwill together to try and find that common ground.”
Suozzi’s victory puts him in a stronger position to hold the seat when he’s on the ballot again in November. Suozzi previously served in Congress before forgoing reelection in 2022 to run unsuccessfully for governor.
Suozzi’s presence in the House will further complicate things for Republicans, who have struggled with getting legislation passed through the lower chamber due to small margins.
When Suozzi is sworn in, the House will have 432 members split between 219 Republicans and 213 Democrats. The magic number to pass legislation through a simple majority is 217, giving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) a two-vote majority, but only if all members are present.
That means an absence on either side of the aisle could doom or revive any given piece of legislation, putting pressure on party leaders to ensure all lawmakers in their party are present to either support or shoot down a bill.
Santos was blunt in his assessment of the House’s smaller majority, posting “-1” after the Democrats reclaimed the seat.
In better news for Republicans, this complicated equation won’t last for long. There are three other vacant seats that will be filled in the coming weeks that were once held by former Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Bill Johnson, both Republicans, and Brian Higgins, a Democrat. As those seats, which aren’t expected to be competitive, are filled, it will provide Republicans a bit more breathing room.
But their troubles in New York won’t be over after Tuesday’s election. The seats that helped Republicans win the House in 2022 could be the very districts that help Democrats seize control in November.
The top court in New York ruled in December that the state’s congressional map must be redrawn ahead of the next election, vacating the boundaries put into place for the 2022 midterm elections. Democrats will now get a chance to undo their losses by implementing a map that could secure a majority of the state’s seats.
Among the Republican incumbents who could be targeted in this sweep are Reps. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), and Marc Molinaro (R-NY), each of whom flipped their seats red during the midterm elections with the help of the redrawn map. The seat Suozzi won on Tuesday is also expected to be part of that sweep, increasing his chances to hold on to the district come November.
Although the map is not finalized, it could lead to Democrats picking up an extra three seats to help win back the majority next year.
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Pilip signaled her political aspirations would not end with Tuesday’s defeat.
“We are fighters. Yes, we lost,” she told her election night party crowd, “but it doesn’t mean we’re going to end here.”
