Democrats Flip George Santos’ House Seat In Devastating Blow To Joe Biden
Wait, isn’t that good news?
House Republicans are down to a piddly 219 seat majority after Democrat Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip in New York’s 3rd District special election. The seat was vacant after college volleyball star, Wall Street tycoon, and noted Broadway producer George Santos was expelled from Congress last December.
Before I gloat any further, I must share this hilarious headline from Fox News:
I know they’re busy fearmongering over at Fox but, as their own sub-hed notes, Suozzi represented the 3rd District from 2017 through 2022. He left the House to run for governor. Santos flipped Suozzi’s seat, which he has now reclaimed.
Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, attempted a positive, if somewhat delusional, spin on an obvious setback.
“Joe Biden won this district by eight points,” he said in a statement. “Democrats outspent Republicans two-to-one, and our Democrat opponent spent decades representing these New Yorkers — yet it was still a dogfight. Republicans still have multiple pathways to grow our majority in November.”
Gotta stay upbeat, I guess. They can’t impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas every week, so they’ll have to find other ways to keep their spirits up — like extended trips to fantasy land. Although Cook Political Report had rated the special election a “toss up,” it wasn’t actually close. Suozzi crushed Pilip 54 to 46 percent, matching and possibly exceeding Biden’s 2020 margin in the district. He dominated in Republican-leaning Nassau County, so much so that the race was called relatively early.
How is this bad news for Democrats?
The media’s reporting of this race supported Hudson’s claim that it was a “dogfight.” A CNN headline from February 5 read, “Democrats scramble to stave off defeat in battle for Santos’ house seat.” Politico declared, “GOP puts Dems on defensive over border security in bellwether special election.” CNN was even more dire on Monday: “New York Democrats are worried about Tuesday’s special election. They have good reason to be.”
I felt more optimistic once Nate Cohn at the New York Times insisted that the special election wasn’t a bellwether and the “result will not tell us anything about the general election.” It’s only Democratic victories that don’t matter. If Pilip had won, the front pages would’ve been filled with obituaries for the Democratic Party: “Why GOP’s NY-3 victory means Biden should resign!”
Politico argued that Democrats would “find themselves on the defensive” because of “the surge of migrants to New York City — more than 170,000 since April 2022 — and the infrastructure of the hyper-organized Nassau County Republican Committee.” Pilip attempted to link Suozzi to what she claimed were President Joe Biden’s “failed” border policies. However, it might’ve backfired on her when Republicans killed major border security legislation at Donald Trump’s behest. She followed the MAGA lemming parade and lied about the deal, saying “it simply puts into law the invasion currently happening at our southern border.”
Suozzi denounced Pilip for taking a “partisan stance and [siding] with the extreme members of the Republican Party and the bosses in the House.”
During a caucus meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that Democrats cheated by nominating a special election candidate NY-3 voters already knew well. Suozzi didn’t just raise more money than Pilip but he also avoided rookie mistakes like holding your final campaign event in the wrong district, which Pilip did.
Pilip was an undistinguished Nassau County legislator (and a registered Democrat) when the tactical geniuses at the Nassau GOP picked her, presumably from a game of “Not It,” to run against Suozzi, who was practically an incumbent. Reports on the ground confirm that she was a lousy candidate who tried to coast on biography in absence of any real experience. She was born in Ethiopia and immigrated to Israel as a child. She served in the Israel Defense Forces before moving to the United States. She described herself as a paratrooper, but the New York Times confirmed she “was an armorer maintaining weapons in the paratrooper’s brigade, not a paratrooper or trained parachutist.” See, after Santos, reporters are dusting off their Google more. They might even pick up a phone and call someone like in the old days.
Pilip agreed to just one debate with Suozzi, despite needing to remind voters she exists. Her policy stances were vague, and it seemed as if the Nassau GOP believed her far-right position on Israel and the border would prove sufficient to hold the seat. Santos was a con man but that likely made him charismatic on the campaign trail. Pilip was tepid dishwater.
Suozzi and Pilip both kept their distance from Biden and Trump, but Newsweek immediately spun this Democratic success as further evidence that everyone hates the Democratic Party’s leader.
Reporter Katherine Fung wrote, “Democrats may have won the special election in New York, but Tom Suozzi’s win could suggest that there’s a winning tactic for Democratic candidates — as long as they’re willing to abandon President Joe Biden.”
Mr. Spock would have several strokes reading this article. Suozzi didn’t “abandon” the president. Even if he had, there’s no evidence that this is why he won. Suozzi is a centrist and has his share of disagreements with Biden, but he never outright attacked him during the campaign. Johnson said yesterday that Suozzi “sounded like a Republican talking about the border,” which is why he won. The Times also claimed that Suozzi “distanced himself from his party, calling for harsher policies at the border and vowing to work with Republicans to fix a broken immigration system.” That is the Democratic Party’s position! Suozzi is hardly an outlier, and Republicans should panic if this position wins swing voters.
You’ll notice that Newsweek didn’t report that Republicans have a big Trump problem, even though Pilip didn’t admit that she’d voted for him until last week. Obviously, this greatly offended the mad MAGA king, who berated Pilip after her loss Tuesday night.
Trump called Pilip a “foolish woman” and used her full name because it’s foreign-sounding and he’s a diseased bigot. He condemned her for not endorsing him and trying to “straddle the fence.” Trump personally lost this district twice.
MAGA, WHICH IS MOST OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, STAYED HOME - AND IT ALWAYS WILL, UNLESS IT IS TREATED WITH THE RESPECT THAT IT DESERVES. I STAYED OUT OF THE RACE, “I WANT TO BE LOVED!” GIVE US A REAL CANDIDATE IN THE DISTRICT FOR NOVEMBER. SUOZZI, I KNOW HIM WELL, CAN BE EASILY BEATEN!
Not surprisingly, the emotionally disturbed malignant narcissist demands “love” that he’s incapable of ever returning. This also strikes me as a not-so-subtle warning to anyone who imagines that his cult will turn out for any Republican presidential nominee who’s not him
Yet some people insist that the major issue of this election is that Biden and Trump are both old.
George Santos revenge tour
Republicans, bereft of conscience and scruples, feel like suckers now for letting Santos leave Congress. Rep. Troy Nehls said, “It was a big mistake. Santos was a solid vote for the conservative voice and we kicked him out.” Rep. Tim Burchett remarked that expelling the proven liar facing multiple felony charges was “virtue signaling.”
“We’ve got to start playing chess and stop playing checkers,” Burchett said.
“That was a strong Democratic seat to begin with,” lamented Rep. Mark Alford, “and for however George Santos presented himself to win that seat, he was successful.”
Santos lied on an epic scale during his 2022 campaign. Alford apparently has no problem with a Congress member perpetuating a massive fraud on their constituents so long as they’re a Republican who can help advance such noble causes as sham impeachments of Democratic officials. That’s about all they’ve achieved in the past year.
It’s highly unlikely that the indicted Santos could’ve won re-election anyway, but Republicans aren’t big on longterm thinking. That sort of makes “playing chess” difficult.
Santos also blamed the lost seat on Republicans’ brief flirtation with decency. The Daily Beast and Semafor report that Santos nasty-grammed the entire New York Republican delegation Tuesday night:
“I hope you guys are happy with this dismal performance and the 10 million dollars your futile Bull Shit cost the party. I look very much forward to seeing most of you lose due to your absolute hate filled campaign to remove me from Congress arbitrarily. Now go tell the Republicans Base [sic] what you fucking idiots did and good luck raising money next quarter.”
It looks like Santos just wants to be loved, as well. He’s probably already on Trump’s VP short list.
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One of Pilip’s talking points was she was a “legal” immigrant. Last time I checked, asking for asylum at the border is also legal.
The media, once again, is garbage. If they were not garbage, their stories would be about:
1) The polls underestimated Dem support by several points in this election--does that suggest that they could be similarly wrong about Biden's chances this fall?
2) Suozzi successfully hammered Republicans for scuttling the border deal. If Dems keep hammering voters over this, could they defang Trump's strongest weapon for the fall?
3) Suozzi's comfortable win now means NY Dems' redistricting can afford to shift some blue pockets into neighboring districts, helping to pick up even more seats this fall.
4) Normally when a party loses a swing district (or several) they react by trying to moderate to appeal to swing voters. Republicans are instead doubling down on Trump who has proven toxic. Why is this? Are Republicans incapable of improvement?
Instead, we get a very smart take about how this is bad news for Biden, because the polls underestimated Suozzi but definitely, we can be certain, are not similarly underestimating Biden. Who pays these hacks, anyway?