Democrat Tom Suozzi Wins George Santos's Former Seat, Will Remove Whoopie Cushion And Nobel Prize
Oh, bummer for Mike Johnson. Sad. Weak.
Democrat Tom Suozzi flipped the congressional seat formerly held by disgraced compulsive liar George Santos last night, thumping Republican Mazi Pilip in New York’s Third District with 53.9 percent to Pilip’s 46.1 percent. The seat was left vacant after Santos, the inventor of Necco Wafers and third in line to the Austrian throne, was expelled from Congress in December, over all his cumulative dickishness and lies. Suozzi will hold the seat for the remainder of Santos’s term then run again for a full term in November.
Suozzi, whose name we hope to be able to type on the first try some day (z always throws us), had previously held the seat before he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, after Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s defenestration, in kind of a dick “can’t let the lady lieutenant governor take it, there’s a man around” move.
We would treat you to some probably terrible things Republicans said about Suozzi, but we were distracted by the reaction of Great Man Donald Trump, who instead of trashing the Democrat who won the election, went on his fake Twitter to attack the Republican candidate, Mazi Pilip, whom he called a
“very foolish woman” who was “running in a race where she didn’t endorse me and tried to ‘straddle the fence,’ when she would have easily WON if she understood anything about MODERN DAY politics in America.”
Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, wasted no time pointing out that this wasn’t terrific news for Trump and Republicans, whose microscopic majority in the House was whittled down by one more seat. She said, “Donald Trump lost again tonight. When Republicans run on Trump’s extreme agenda — even in a Republican-held seat — voters reject them.”
The campaign for the suburban Long Island seat involved issues we’ll be seeing a lot of this fall, including immigration, crime (even though violent crime in New York is sharply down this year), and of course abortion rights. Pilip went after Suozzi on immigration, and he echoed Biden’s calls for a temporary shutdown of the US-Mexico border, but then Senate Republicans went and killed the bill that would have given Biden authority to do that, oops.
On abortion, Suozzi said Pilip couldn’t be trusted to protect abortion rights, and Pilip did herself no favors by repeatedly saying that she’s “pro-life” but also thinks that abortion should be a choice that’s left up to the woman. She said that she wouldn’t vote for a national abortion ban and that Mifepristone should remain on the market, but then there’s that whole “being a Republican” thing going against her.
In case you’re counting — and political analyst Simon Rosenberg certainly is! — following the Dobbs decision in 2022, Democrats have been on a run, not only winning five special elections, but also overperforming their 2020 results in those five districts by an average of seven points. There’s a whole lot of encouraging data in that post, so go read the whole thing, as we are wont to say.
So congratulations, Congressman-elect-again Suozzi. And good luck in the fall, by which time the district will have been redrawn by the state Lege in hopes of creating more safe seats for Democrats.
Oh, and good luck with all the felony trials, George Santos. Perhaps you can get Perry Mason or the tall skinny guy from “Law and Order” to represent you.
PREVIOUSLY!
[AP / Hopium Chronicles]
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For a long time Republicans pushed the idea that all politics was crooked which discouraged people from getting involved. Then with <i>Dobbs</i> they proved that one party was a lot worse then the other. Now tjey're reeping the whirlwind.
I cannot express how relieved I am with how well this election went. My SwingLeft group went hard -- we ran canvassing trips, letter parties, and phone banks -- and the local teams we coordinated with worked even harder. I'd be surprised if there was a single voter nobody made contact with before election day.
Personally, I'm nervous on the phone, and with small children, day trips to canvass are almost always out of the question, so instead I run letter-writing parties on zoom. A friend of mine in the district, aware of my special interest, pinged me to let me know that a LOT of the people he was speaking to in the days before the election to told him they'd gotten a letter reminding them to vote, and they were very motivated to do so.
(Insert here my obligatory notice that if you'd like to volunteer and aren't sure how, feel free to message me, and I will do my level best to hook you up with something that works for you.)