Why the Race to Replace George Santos Is So Close

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From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi and this is the Daily.

It's a great question. Now, I'd start by saying, let's not just so quickly race over George Santos. This was a guy whose yearlong embarrassment put this district on the map, I think left a lot of voters there, really exacerbated.

I mean, it is probably the reason why you and I are talking right now.

That's very true. But we're also talking because this is a really special district. We're talking about a slice of Queens and Long Island that is racially diverse, ethnically diverse, got people of all kinds of socioeconomic statuses. And, as such, it's the type of place that we see all over the country where elections are probably going to be decided later this year for president and for control of the House of Representatives. This area has swung back and forth a lot.

I remember that. That was a big election, that Republicans just had a wipeout in New York.

Yeah. So when Santos was expelled in December, this race becomes a really big deal for both parties. And there's a couple of reasons for that. If the Democrats can win and flip this seat, they could narrow Republicans majority right now in the president, at a time when they're trying to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary or fund the government and make their life a lot more difficult. But it also was a race that's going to set the tone for the rest of 2024 and give the parties kind of an early preview of where the elections are headed.

of the Santos train crash. So, you know, it's logical. they would think that. Right. Exactly.

But instead, as we head into Election Day today, we're looking at a statistical dead heat.

And Nick, what's your understanding of why the race is so close?

I think that there's really two issues that have come to dominate this race above anything else. One of them is a big international issue that has a kind of particular local resonance, and that's the war unfolding right now in Gaza. So this is one of the most Jewish districts in the country. And a lot of voters are looking very closely at both candidates and how they're approaching this. The other one is an issue that's in headlines and conversations in Washington and all over the country right now.

to figure out what to do about it. Okay. So let's talk about the candidates and how they're dealing with this issue. So introduce me to the Republican.

Right. So the Republican in this race is a woman named Mazi Pilip.

The future of our nation is at stake in this race for the third congressional district.

on February 13.. She's a local part-time legislator in Nassau County with relatively little political experience. And this is shown on the campaign trail. She's really not doing a lot of public events. She doesn't speak in an unscripted way.

we have to be strong. And I'm Israel. Hi. Thank you.

To confront both what she sees as anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism creeping up all around the world and in American politics, particularly, she says, on the left of the.

Democratic Party. And how does she present what she would do on Israel? I mean, who is she in terms of the policy stuff with Israel?

Yeah. So she is a very staunch defender of Israel. You wouldn't be surprised. She doesn't want to put any condition on American aid to Israel. She thinks a ceasefire is a deeply unjust solution.

So that's very different than President Biden's position, for example.

That's right. And it's one of the few things that separates her from her Democratic opponent.

on this issue. So tell me about her Democratic opponent. Who is he?

All right, everybody. Well, my name is Tom Suozzi, and I'm running for the United States Congress.

Somebody who's been around. Somebody who's got a proven record of getting things done.

Before he decided to run for governor, it didn't go so well, and Santos got elected. And on this issue, he's presented himself as staunchly pro-Israel as Pillup is. He doesn't want to condition aid. He's against a ceasefire.

OK, I got to Israel about seven hours ago to show solidarity with our friends here in Israel and.

with our Jewish friends throughout the world. And even in this incredibly short campaign, he took time out to fly over to Israel to prove his bona fides.

It reminds us that evil exists in the world, and we have to stand strong and defeat this terrorist operation.

OK, so clear why they're both doing that, because it's a very Jewish district. But why is this an issue in this district at all, then? They're both pretty similar.

I think there's two parts to understanding this. One is the unique appeal of Pillup's story. So remember how I said she was in the IDF? She's also an Orthodox Jew. She has seven kids who she says she worries about facing anti-Semitism in the United States.

Our brothers and sisters got attacked by a terrorist organization.

She has made concerns about this issue visceral in her campaign, a centerpiece of her campaign, in a way that, frankly, I haven't really seen another candidate do out on the trail.

I promise you, the Jewish people, the state of Israel, the American people.

will make you pay the price you deserve.

And so she's basically giving Jewish voters, who are uncomfortable or nervous in this moment, feel like historically unsettled, an opportunity to vote for someone like them and somebody who is really going to go to Congress and be a voice. Nobody doubts that this is going to be a centerpiece of her identity and Congress. And at the same time, Swazi is dealing with this other problem, which is not so much about him, but about his party. There is a concern right now, I think, among a lot of American Jews and a lot of voters that I've talked to in this race and rabbis, that the Democratic Party's left flank has become increasingly skeptical or even hostile to Israel. And so they may be fine with Tom Swazi, but they're just really worried about voting for Democrats at all right now.

And what's his message to them?

Yeah. So Swazi is directly addressing this and saying, actually, I agree with you, but that's the reason you've got to elect me.

Another Republican that supports Israel is not adding much to the equation.

You don't need another super strong pro-Israel Republican. We've got plenty of those. You need somebody that is going to stand up and get in the trenches and fight with his own party. That's how we put up a bulwark against this. It's within the Democratic Party.

What we need are strong, outspoken, pro-Israel Democrats that will stand up for Israel and will stand up to the extreme left.

And I'm the guy to do that.

I am uniquely set up to fight exactly the force that you were most afraid of, which is progressives on the left side of the Democratic Party.

Exactly. And in my reporting, I've seen all kinds of signs that voters are really kind of torn over this. So in one part of the district, and this is where Pilip is actually from, you have a really large population of Orthodox Jews and Iranian Jews who have become very politically conservative in recent years. And her campaign is banking on the fact that they are going to be super motivated and come out with huge numbers. And that matters in a low turnout election.

It's pretty interesting. I mean, the people in the middle, had it not been for October 7th, perhaps they would have just voted for the Democrat, because that's kind of maybe how they tended to vote. But now, October 7th has kind of made this chemical reaction, and it's a little bit of a wild card. We don't know what's going to happen.

Right. And this is one of these issues that I think is being watched by political strategists all over the country who are wondering, okay, what could this mean? potentially in other districts? Have the foundations of American politics been shaken so hard that Republicans can drive a wedge between Jewish voters and Democrats? And that could potentially have a real impact across the country.

We'll be right back.

My name is Abdi Latif Dahir. I'm the East Africa correspondent at The New York Times. Speaking to someone in their own local language opens up a level of honesty and transparency that would not be present when I speak to somebody in English. When I come into someone's home and greet them in Somali or Swahili, you know, like, habari or habari zenu, it brings you into the room. I understand the culture you're coming from, and I'm speaking to you in the language that you understand, that level of familiarity.

So, Nick, tell me about how immigration is shaping this race.

So let me start by just zooming out for a second. Since the pandemic, there has been an incredible buildup of people from Venezuela, Latin America, other countries trying to cross the southern border. And it's become a big issue in Washington right now. Last week, we saw President Biden and Congress really tangling over a potential border deal, and it's become one of the biggest issues for the 2024 campaign as well. Former President Trump has made clear that this is the issue that he wants to run on, one of the ones that he really thinks he can beat President Biden up on.

both in Washington and in New York. Okay. So where do we see this play out on the campaign?

So this issue starts to show up in polls very early in this race as a top priority of voters. But I think the moment that it really crystallized on the campaign trail that this thing, that immigration, is going to be the center of this campaign, was a couple of weeks ago when Mazi Pilip, the Republican candidate, decided to have her first major press conference of the campaign outside that migrant shelter in Queens. My name is Mazi Pilip. I'm a legal immigrant and a candidate for Congress. She shows up, she introduces herself as a legal immigrant before she even said she's the Republican candidate for Congress.

So she's saying, I came here the right way, legally, these people didn't,

and all of this is happening under Democrats. Exactly. So. this looks like a typical kind of Republican issue, right? It's the things that Republicans are doing all over the country right now.

solution. And my opponent isn't going to do that. So he basically wants to show everybody he's no less tough on the issue than she is. He's like, OK, I see your press conference. I'll raise you mine.

that we are used to in the kind of political world, thinking of immigration as an issue that Republicans attack on and Democrats either stay quiet or try to ignore it. And here you have the Democratic candidate really diving head first into an issue that polls show voters are blaming his party for. In some ways, this is really kind of typical for somebody like Tom Suozzi, who's a centrist who likes to buck his party. But I think it also reflects that he learned an important lesson from 2022, when Republicans perform much better here in New York than they did in the rest of the country. And they did it in part by really speaking to and kind of channeling fears about rising crime in New York.

Danielle Pletka, Chief Investigative Officer, Politico, Which in a way is a pretty bad sign for national level Democrats, right, including Biden, heading into November, like that, a Democrat in a swing district of a blue state is running away from his own party's position on immigration. But that's also a pretty tricky needle for him to thread.

Yeah, no doubt, especially in a special election, where, by the way, candidates usually win and lose based on their ability to turn out their most loyal voters. Normally, you're not reaching across the aisle. But I think that Suozzi is finding himself having to do. this is emblematic of just how bad this issue is for Democrats and how bad their brand has become in a place like the suburbs of New York City. Remember, Biden won this district pretty easily four years ago.

You're referring to the deal that the Republicans actually wanted and then bailed on at the last minute, this deal in the Senate on immigration.

That's right. So Suozzi is able to go out and say, look, here's a bipartisan solution. The Democrats agreed to give Republicans almost everything that they wanted. There's some money for the wall. There's money to speed up and change the asylum process.

Basically saying, look, this is a pretty cynical political move. They're using it for their own political gain instead of actually trying to fix the problem.

Exactly.

And how does PILP respond to that?

PILP responds by basically doubling down and saying, why should we trust you on the solution when you arguably helped create this problem in the first place? And this is where Suozzi runs into some trouble with that long record of his. It turns out when you've been in politics for 30 years, you accumulate a record that's pretty easy to go in and pluck things out of to support an argument like this. So National Republicans and the PILP campaign have been airing millions of dollars of ads that showed he voted with Biden 100 percent of the time when he was still in Congress. So it really connects him to the president on all kinds of issues.

When I was county executive in Nassau County, I kicked ice out of Nassau County.

Bragging on a debate stage about how he kicked ice, that is, immigration and customs enforcement, out of Nassau County when he was county executive.

Essentially a pro-immigration stance.

Right. That's how it looks. In Congress, he'll make it worse. Congressional leadership, then, is responsible for the content of his advertising. Now, Suozzi has explained he had good reason.

Okay. So, given all of this, of course, we're not going to know the answer until tonight when we get the election results. But Nick, just casting a little bit ahead here, say the Republican wins, say Pillup wins, what should Republicans take away from that? What's the lesson there?

Republicans took a big hit last week for pulling out of that bipartisan immigration deal that they themselves demanded and helped negotiate.

Right.

But they did it for a reason, arguably. They did it because it is a very good political issue for them and they want to run their 2024 campaigns on it. And if they end up being successful in this race, which is really kind of the very first test of that strategy, I think it may tell them that that was worth it, at least politically, and that this is the path that they ought to continue going down, both as they run against President Biden, but also in Senate and House races all over the country, where things are close and voters may be similarly disposed to blame the Democrats for it. And, on the other hand, if Mazi Pillup loses and Suozzi wins, while I don't think that we'll see Republicans completely abandon immigration as an issue by any means, I think they're going to have to take a hard look at the kind of suite of issues that they're running on and whether that alone is enough to get candidates across the finish line in these tough districts.

And, Nick, what about the Democrat? I mean, what if Suozzi wins? What would that tell Democrats?

So Suozzi, if he can win, would essentially be writing a playbook for Democrats across the country. And I think it would go something like this. Keep pounding your Republican opponent on abortion and Trump and issues like that, right? But you can't ignore the issues that Republicans really like. either.

Nick, thank you.

My pleasure, Sabrina.

In a troubling sign for turnout in Tuesday's special election, there is heavy snow in the New York metro area. A significant storm could create even greater uncertainty in a contest whose outcome is likely to be decided by a small margin.

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Here's what else you should know today. On Monday, Israel's military said it had conducted a wave of attacks on the southern Gazan city of Rafah to provide cover for soldiers undertaking a hostage rescue mission there. Israeli special forces raided a building there before dawn, freeing two hostages held by Hamas. The Gazan health ministry said at least 67 Palestinians had been killed. The ministry's figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

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