In what was thought to be a special election that would go down to the proverbial wire Tuesday, Democrat Tom Suozzi won the hotly contested race in New York's 3rd District by a surprisingly big margin.
In near-final returns, onetime Nassau County Executive and former Rep. Suozzi rolled up 55% against Republican Mazi Pilip, a one-term Nassau County legislator.
Suozzi carried the small Queens portion of the district and the larger Nassau County portion, where the GOP organization under county Chair Joe Cairo made an all-out effort for Pilip.
The special election resulted from the expulsion last year by the House of freshman Republican George Santos, who had become a national figure following revelations of his lying about his resume, education, and other aspects of his past.
The campaign by Suozzi and outside supporters of his candidacy seemed to many observers a "sneak preview" of the campaign Democrats will wage in the fall to win control of the House with major deployment of campaign workers from labor unions (the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners flew in members nationwide to canvass for Suozzi) and a heavy emphasis on abortion and the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that sent the issue back to the states.
"The abortion issue was a huge part of the race," John LeBoutillier, the last Republican to hold the district (1980-1982) before Santos, told Newsmax.
"The TV spots on behalf of Suozzi showed a clip of Pilip saying 'I'm pro-life' and then pointed out she had the endorsement of the New York State Conservative Party, which has a strong pro-life plank in its platform (the Conservative Party, which holds the third line on the Empire State ballot, says in its platform 'We applaud the U.S. Supreme Court's long-overdue decision to find that Roe vs Wade was always a misinterpretation of the Constitution')"
The Ethiopian-born Pilip, who served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), had an impressive personal story. But in the 70-day campaign, her story was rarely told to voters by the campaign. Moreover, while Pilip's campaign and its outside supporters ran spots slamming President Joe Biden and Suozzi on the issue of illegal immigration, local sources said that there was no advertising spelling out how illegal immigrants had created a wave of robbery and looting in Nassau County itself and thus affected district residents personally.
Republicans are likely to make the case that they had a relatively unknown candidate and that Suozzi is almost a household word in the 3rd District.
Nevertheless, the size of Suozzi's victory in a district that was more Republican than when he was its congressman and the nature of the campaign that elected him is sure to cause some concern among Republicans nationwide.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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