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New York


A LONGTIME NY DEMOCRAT FLIPPED A REPUBLICAN SEAT. THE NATION TOOK NOTICE.

Tom Suozzi successfully used Democrats’ weaknesses, the border crisis and Joe
Biden’s age, to his advantage to win in an 8-point spread.



Democrat Tom Suozzi rode to victory Tuesday by latching on to vulnerabilities
for his own party. | Mary Altaffer/AP

By Nick Reisman

02/14/2024 07:34 PM EST

 * 
 * 

 * * Link Copied
 * * 
   * 
   * 

NEW YORK — Embrace calls for stronger border security. Acknowledge the advanced
age of President Joe Biden. Pledge to support law enforcement and Israel.

Democrat Tom Suozzi hit on all these points during his campaign for a bellwether
House district on Long Island — successfully turning his party’s chief
vulnerabilities into assets.



And the strategy worked.



Suozzi’s 8-point victory Tuesday against Republican candidate Mazi Pilip came as
Democrats nationwide are grappling with the GOP’s leveraging of the southern
border crisis to its advantage, Biden’s low approval ratings and concerns about
his age.

But Suozzi managed to neutralize these political weaknesses that his Democratic
brethren will likely confront as they run for House seats in swing districts
throughout the country in November.

Instead of dodging the issue of border security, Suozzi assailed House
Republicans for snubbing a bipartisan deal in the Senate, while embracing
suburban voters’ concerns over the flow of migrants in the country. And Suozzi
signaled to voters he shares their concerns with Biden’s age during a recent FOX
5 New York interview, though he is expected to endorse him if he’s the party’s
nominee.

Democrats also portrayed Pilip as an opponent of abortion rights, long a key
issue for the party that has been effectively deployed in swing seats across the
country, yet it did not become a central theme. It’s an issue that consistently
resonates with the wealthy and college-educated suburbanites who have become the
prime swing voters in recent presidential races; but it plays an even bigger
role in states where abortion protections are on the line, like Wisconsin.

Democrats sought to define Mazi Pilip as an opponent of abortion rights in the
hotly contested House race. | Brittainy Newman/AP

In the first House race of the pivotal election year — a special election to
replace ousted Republican George Santos — Democrats locally gave their national
leaders reason for relief as they vie to retake control over Congress and retain
the White House in November. Some of Suozzi’s success can be replicated in
similar swing districts: Tying Republicans to national dysfunction,
acknowledging voter concerns over public safety and immigration and spending big
on the airwaves. And some were unique to this race: Inclement weather that
suppressed turnout appeared to work in Suozzi’s favor and Santos’
scandal-scarred exit seemed to leave voters wary of a political neophyte in
Pilip.




Fourteen political leaders and consultants from both parties agreed that a
campaign built on a platform of bipartisanship and moderation can matter to
voters otherwise exhausted with politics and polarization.

“Running competent campaigns matter,” said Neal Kwatra, a New York-based
Democratic consultant unaffiliated with Suozzi’s bid. “Democrats need to be
aggressive and inoculate [themselves] on the border, public safety and the
economy. Suozzi did that well — especially on the border.”

Republicans on Wednesday were quick to note the factors at play in a standalone
House race in a costly media market.

House Speaker Mike Johnson downplayed the significance of Suozzi's win. |
Francis Chung/POLITICO

House Speaker Mike Johnson pointed to the more than $14 million spent by
Democrats to flip the Santos seat and propel Suozzi, who represented the area
for three terms, to victory back to Congress. Biden won the district by 8 points
in 2020, but a recent Newsday/Siena College poll had Trump 5 percentage points
up in the November election.

“The result last night is not something, in my view, that Democrats should
celebrate too much,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday. “Their candidate ran
like a Republican. He sounded like a Republican talking about the border and
immigration.”

But Democrats believe Suozzi’s success is a sign built-in disadvantages that
face their party this year can be overcome with the right candidate and precise
messaging.

“It is very dangerous to assume that the conditions, the message, the strategies
that worked in one special election on Feb. 13 in New York will work in every
battleground election in November,” Democratic former Rep. Steve Israel said in
an interview. “But you can take the blueprint; you have it to build your own
façade.”


THE MESSAGING

Suozzi has long staked out an image as a moderate Democrat who is willing to
work with Republicans and criticize the left wing of his party if necessary.

“Being reasonable, meeting people where they are, not parroting talking points
of your party that are canned for you is incredibly helpful,” Laura Curran, a
former Democratic Nassau County executive, said. “These voters are
sophisticated; they can smell a phony.”

Suozzi declined to comment for this story. Pilip’s campaign did not return a
message seeking comment.

Suozzi is well known to voters in the district: His father served as mayor of
Glen Cove, a job the son would later hold for seven years before being elected
Nassau County executive.


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His career in elected office has taken quixotic detours — losing his 2006
gubernatorial bid, handily to Democrat Eliot Spitzer, a political star at the
time. Suozzi surrendered his House seat in 2022 to launch a similarly ill-fated
primary bid against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

But Suozzi and Hochul brokered a peace last year as he prepared to run for the
House seat following Santos’ expulsion.

Hochul encouraged Suozzi in the meeting to focus on abortion rights in the
campaign, according to two people familiar with the conversation and granted
anonymity to disclose a private conversation.

Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul made peace with Suozzi and encouraged to him to
push for abortion rights on the campaign trail. | Hans Pennink/AP

The governor also emerged as a prominent surrogate for her former Democratic
rival in the final days of the race. She blasted House Republicans over the
failed border package that emerged from the Senate and questioned whether Pilip
had any plan to address immigration.

Suozzi, too, sought a more confrontational approach on the southern border than
Democrats have typically displayed in campaigns. New York has seen an influx of
more than 170,000 migrants in the last two years, straining resources and
forcing Hochul to propose spending $2.4 billion in the next year to provide
emergency shelter and other support.

The crisis has made New York, more than 1,000 miles from the southern border, a
new front in the political debate over immigration and put Democrats on the
defensive.

Suozzi also broke with party faithful — and certainly left-flank Democrats — by
calling for stronger border security laws and more funding for law enforcement.
Democratic lawmakers said they understood why Suozzi staked out those positions.

“He knows this issue and he knows his district better than anybody else,” Rep.
Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat from Manhattan, said during a news conference
Wednesday. “And so, whatever political decisions he made, I’m sure took into
consideration the realities of his district that are different than other
districts. But clearly, the message of this election is that New Yorkers
rejected the MAGA extremist position on immigration.”

He also kept Biden at arm’s length. The president did not appear in the
district, a tactic that Suozzi at the outset of the campaign said he wanted.

By contrast, Pilip tried to embrace Trump in recent days after avoiding him for
much of the race. Trump, in turn, blasted Pilip for not fully tying herself to
him.




“Politically, what you’re not going to see is President Biden going out there
and throwing Tom Suozzi under the bus because he distanced himself from him, the
way that you’re seeing Donald Trump throw his candidate under the bus if they
don’t come and kiss the ring,” Democratic strategist Maria Cardona said. “That
means that Democrats understand the politics of all of the different districts
and states that Democrats need to win.”

The Trump campaign did not return a message seeking comment and Biden’s campaign
declined to comment.

But Republicans do not expect battleground Democrats will be able to fully sever
themselves from Biden as effectively in November, when the president is almost
certain to be leading the ticket.

Immigration and inflation will still be at the top of voters’ minds, and GOP
leaders believe their candidates will be more adroit at addressing those issues
on the campaign trail than Democrats.

“It will be a presidential campaign, it will be a nationalized campaign,” New
York Republican Chair Ed Cox said in an interview. “The presidential issues that
were not maximized during the campaign will be.”


THE AD WARS

Democrats bet big on Suozzi. His campaign, along with the DCCC and the
Democratic-allied House Majority PAC spent a combined $14.1 million, easily
outpacing the $8.3 million spent by Pilip and her allies, according to AdImpact.

The TV ads painted Pilip as a MAGA extremist who opposes abortion rights.

The tactic has been a frequent one for Democrats in hotly contested House seats
across the country, often deployed in states where abortion access is in peril.

“Abortion has simply been a losing issue for Republicans and a winning issue for
Democrats,” said Alexandra LaManna, a former Biden White House spokesperson
focused on reproductive rights. “This is the only time in history where
Americans have fewer freedoms than before, thanks to Donald Trump and
Republicans, and people are angry about what that means today and scared about
what it means for the future.”

Abortion rights opponents, meanwhile, downplayed the impact of the issue for
Pilip, who pledged to vote against a national ban while calling herself
personally “pro-life.”

“I don’t think in this district abortion would have been a motivator or a
depressor of turnout,” Conservative Party Chair Jerry Kassar said.

Former President Donald Trump was barely mentioned by Democrats. | Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images

Absent from the TV ads was Trump, who remains deeply unpopular among Democratic
voters overall in deep blue New York.

That was by design, state Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs said, in order to keep
Trump supporters at bay in the race and not motivate them to come out to vote in
a February special election with only a House race on the ballot.

“Why hit a hornet’s nest unnecessarily?” he said. “They don’t like Trump. But
you throw it in the face of MAGA Republicans, you hit their guy, and now they’re
coming out.”


GETTING THE VOTE OUT

Suozzi was able to tap into a deep well of labor union support to provide an
ancillary field operation in the final weeks of the campaign.

New York is the second-most unionized state in the country and labor plays an
outsize role in the state’s politics. Labor groups large and small raced to
claim credit in the hours after Suozzi was declared victory.




Battleground New York, a coalition including 1199 SEIU and AFSCME, focused on
getting low-propensity voters to come out, knocking on more than 100,000 doors.

“It wasn’t a persuasion of voters for Tom Suozzi,” but “to persuade people to
take part in this democratic process, because they have a bad taste in their
mouth,” the coalition’s co-director Gabby Seay said in an interview.

The New York City District Council of Carpenters, by contrast, sought to
persuade swing voters.

“You can’t put your head in the sand and pray the voters aren’t going to know
about any given controversial issue, because the Republican super PACs will be
there spending $3 million to remind them,” Kevin Elkins, the labor group’s
political director, said.

Republicans also stumbled with turning out supporters during 10 days of early
voting and Democrats had a clear advantage with absentee ballots.

That became apparent on Election Day, when a snowstorm walloped the New York
City region. A Republican super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, hired
snowplows to clear GOP precincts in the district.

But it wasn’t enough to pull Pilip over the finish line.

“I think the snow was a factor,” Nassau County GOP Chair Joe Cairo said. “More
against us than the Democrats.”

Jeff Coltin and Emily Ngo contributed to this report.


 * Filed under:
 * Employment & Immigration,
 * Immigration,
 * Abortion,
 * Joe Biden,
 * Joe Biden 2024,
 * New York,
 * Donald Trump,
 * Donald Trump 2024,
 * DCCC,
 * Abortion Rights,
 * Adriano Espaillat,
 * Border Crisis,
 * Tom Suozzi,
 * George Santos,
 * Mazi Pilip


POLITICO
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