Tom Suozzi’s victory in yesterday’s special House election on Long Island brings Democrats one seat closer to recapturing the majority they lost two years ago. But in the run-up to Election Day, party leaders were leery about making too much of the closely watched contest—win or lose.

“This is a local race,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told me when I asked what a Suozzi win would say about the Democrats’ chances in November. Jeffries had just finished rallying a crowd of a few hundred health-care workers on the first day of early voting. The Brooklyn Democrat stands to become House speaker if the party can pick up another four seats later this year. His very presence in Suozzi’s district belied his attempt to downplay its significance.

This was as national as a contest for a single House seat gets. Democrats poured millions of dollars into the compressed campaign brought about by the expulsion in December of Representative George Santos, the Republican who’d won this swing seat after selling voters on an invented life story. The election became a test case for the political salience of the GOP’s attacks on President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration and the influx of migrants over the southern border. Suozzi’s opponent, Mazi Pilip, used nearly all her campaign ads to tie him to Biden’s border policies. Suozzi, meanwhile, took a firmer stance on the border than many Democrats and assailed Mazi for opposing the bipartisan deal that Senate Republicans killed last week.

Suozzi’s message prevailed, and his victory could offer Democrats, including the beleaguered president, a road map for rebutting Republicans on immigration in battleground states and suburban districts this fall. Notably, Suozzi broke with Democrats who have waved off voter concerns about the border as a GOP-manufactured crisis; he called for higher spending to fortify the border and urged the deportation of migrants accused of assaulting New York City police officers.

Non-paywall link

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Don’t make this guy a hero.

    He’s an unpopular conservative Dem who’s already broken away from Biden and the party because he thinks they’re not supporting Israel’s genocide enough. In addition to immigration and other things.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tom-suozzi-breaks-with-biden-and-democrats-supports-gop-s-israel-aid-bill/ar-BB1hSW39

    He’s a Manchin democrat at best, but could go full Sinema at any moment.

  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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    9 months ago

    Centrists when centrists win: This proves the inarguable correctness of triangulating centrism.

    Centrists when centrists lose: The left lost the race for us.

    You know for damn sure this writer would be talking about how Democrat’s needed to be tougher on immigration regardless of the outcome of this race. A conservative Democrat who used to represent the district before a surprise win by a train wreck won a bluish-purple seat. What a shock.

    “Voters in a +10 Biden district elected a moderate Democrat by +8. Quick, every politician adopt all his (and our) exact political preferences.”