Suozzi challenging Santos for old House seat

Former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) signaled Tuesday that he plans to run for his old seat in New York’s 3rd Congressional District and challenge embattled Rep. George Santos (R), who also faces a number of Republican challengers.

“Today I’m filing a committee to run for Congress in November 2024. The madness in Washington, DC, and the absurdity of George Santos remaining in the United States Congress is obvious to everyone,” Suozzi said in a statement.  

A Newsday/Siena College poll of registered voters in New York’s 3rd District in January found an overwhelming number of those voters wanted Santos to resign, by a margin of 78 percent to 13 percent.  

Federal prosecutors in May charged Santos with 13 counts, including wire fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds. 

Suozzi, 61, held the seat in the 3rd District from January 2017 to January 2023 and gave it up to run for governor in the 2022 election, when he lost in the Democratic primary to Gov. Kathy Hochul.  

The exact boundary lines of New York’s congressional districts are still in flux because of political and legal fighting over redistricting, and they are not expected to be resolved until next year.

But there are already crowded fields in the Democratic and Republican primaries to run for Santos’s seat.  

The Democrats looking at the race include Josh Lafazan, a member of the Nassau County Legislature, Anna Kaplan, a former state senator, activist Zak Malamed, former New York City Council candidate Steve Behar and St. John’s professor William Murphy.  

Suozzi announced Tuesday that he will have a formal campaign kickoff after local New York elections in 2024 but urged supporters to join his campaign at SuozziforCongress2024.com.  

“You know me. I’ve never sat on the sidelines. From cost-of-living to immigration, crime, climate change, combating terrorism in the Middle East and globally, and simply helping people, we need more common sense and compassion and less chaos and senseless fighting,” he said in his statement posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.