Former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) has won the special election for New York’s Third Congressional District in a blow to House Republicans’ already thin majority.
As of 10:06 p.m. ET, the Associated Press press called the race for Suozzi, who beat out Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip, a member of the Nassau County legislature who served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Forces. As of 10:11 p.m. ET, the New York Times election results showed Suozzi secured 58.7 percent of the vote to Pilip’s 41.3 percent with an estimated 52 percent of the vote reporting.
Suozzi will fill the seat that was vacated when embattled former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was expelled from Congress in December. Once Suozzi is sworn in, Republicans will only have a six-seat advantage over Democrats, at 219 seats to 213, amid key spending battles with the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Biden administration.
For reference as to how fragile the Republican majority is, the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas passed by one vote on Tuesday at 214-213. Had Suozzi been in Congress, the vote likely would have been 214-214.
Suozzi previously served in Congress from 2017-2023 and did not seek reelection in 2022 in favor of a failed gubernatorial bid.
One GOP strategist focused on House races told Axios that Republicans faced an “uphill fight” heading into the election, while a Republican representative speaking anonymously predicted the “weather may cause a problem” in the district, which includes parts of Queens and Nassau County.
U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY) leaves the Capitol Hill Club as members of the press follow him on January 31, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Biden won the district in 2020 by eight points over former President Donald Trump, as a Democrat operative noted to the outlet. Santos carried it in 2022 by nearly eight points, with then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin at the top of the ticket.
Congress voted 311-114 on December 1 to expel Santos from the House after he was federally charged with 23 counts in October, ranging from conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States to counts of wire fraud to counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and more.
As Breitbart News noted, an Investigative Subcommittee (ISC) report on Santos released by the House Ethics Committee on November 16 found that the Santos campaign used donations for botox treatments, OnlyFans, and lodging in Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
However, the expulsion broke with hundreds of years of precedent. Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) noted that of the five members of Congress expelled before Santos was, three “fought for the Confederacy” during the Civil War while the other two were actually convicted of criminal wrongdoing.
Republicans’ majority was further wounded when former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who was ousted from the speakership through a motion to vacate in October, left Congress at the end of December.