New York Democrat Tom Suozzi is heading back to the House, after successfully flipping the seat previously held by expelled Republican Rep. George Santos in a special election Tuesday.
Suozzi, who held the seat from 2017 to 2023, defeated GOP candidate Mazi Pilip in a 54 percent to 46 percent vote as a snowstorm blanketed New York.
Santos was ousted in a bipartisan vote in December amid ethical and legal probes.
The Long Island-centered district was seen as a key win for Democrats, who narrowed the already razor-thin GOP majority, with many wondering whether it could signal a strong position for the Democratic Party in November.
House Speaker Mike Johnson
(R-La.) publicly brushed off the loss, despite having personally campaigned for Pilip in the district.
“The result last night is not something, in my view, that Democrats should celebrate too much,” he told reporters
Wednesday. “That is in no way a bellwether of what’s going to happen this fall.”
But there was no shortage of theories about what happened: Former President Trump blamed “very foolish” Pilip, who didn’t endorse his reelection bid; former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
blamed Trump; some Democrats credited the GOP waffling on immigration; a noted Republican pollster attributed it to dysfunction in the House; among others.
Trump went to Truth Social to give his takeaway:
“MAGA, WHICH IS MOST OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, STAYED HOME – AND IT ALWAYS WILL, UNLESS IT IS TREATED WITH THE RESPECT THAT IT DESERVES,” he wrote.
Haley, who is Trump’s chief remaining rival for the GOP presidential nomination, pointed to the New York loss as a sign that Trump’s become a “huge weight” on Republican candidates.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz said the outcome should be the “final wakeup call” for House Republicans, who have been bogged down in public infighting for much of the past year.
“If they ignore or attempt to explain away why they lost, they will lose in November as well,” he posted online. “The issue agenda is on their side. Their congressional behavior is not.”
