Democrat Tom Suozzi wins New York special election for George Santos’ former seat

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Tom Suozzi has delivered a crucial House seat back into the Democrat column after defeating Republican Mazi Pilip in Tuesday’s special election to replace George Santos in New York’s 3rd district.

The Democrat, 61, was declared the winner by the Associated Press just after 10pm with a little over 50 per cent of the vote in. He had secured 58.7 per cent of the votes with just over half of votes counted.

Residents in the district, comprising eastern Queens and in the Long Island suburbs, had to contend with a massive blizzard that dumped up to six inches of snow on Tuesday.

Mr Suozzi went into election day with a healthy lead from early voting, and the final result may have been impacted by Tuesday’s snowstorm.

Both candidates offered free rides to get their voters to polling stations.

After the chaos of Mr Santos’ 12 months in Congress, voters opted for a known quantity in Mr Suozzi over a political newcomer in Ms Pilip.

The race had been widely touted as a key indicator for how suburban voters might cast their ballots in the general election rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Voters who spoke to The Independent earlier this week said they were ready to move on from the unseemly spectacle created by Mr Santos, who became just the sixth House member to be expelled from Congress in December.

The seat will be up for grabs again in November’s general election, but could look completely different due to a court-ordered round of redistricting that will produce a new electoral map for New York house seats.

Republicans’ majority in the House now narrows to 219-213.

The impeachment of Homeland Secretary secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday night by a single vote illustrates how critical Mr Suozzi’s victory will be for House Leader Mike Johnson’s ability to pass his agenda.

Mr Suozzi will face a slew of crucial votes in the coming weeks on military aid to Ukraine and Israel, and whether to keep the federal government open.

New York City’s migrant crisis was top of voters’ minds, and both candidates had sought to stake out hardline approaches to border security.

Mr Suozzi pointed out Ms Pilip’s opposition to a bipartisan Senate bill that would have tightened border security and provided aid to Israel and Ukraine. Republican support for the bill vanished after Donald Trump came out in opposition to it.

Mr Suozzi is a former three-term Congressman who has held public office in the district for nearly 30 years,  first as mayor of Glen Cove, and later as Nassau County executive.

He was also a more polished performer on the campaign trail, and repeatedly attacked his opponent over her inconsistent positions on abortion, border security and gun safety as the race turned into a referendum on national issues.

Ms Pilip kept a low profile during much of the campaign, and was often flanked by GOP lawmakers during press conferences.

The mother-of-seven preferred to lean in to her extraordinary biography as an Ethiopian-born, former Israeli Defense Force paratrooper who had immigrated legally to the US before winning local office in Nassau County.

In a sign of how critical the election was in Washington DC, both parties pumped around $20m into negative advertising blitzes that bombarded local news channels and sportscasts, and even ran during Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Mr Suozzi tried to paint Ms Pilip as an extremist, Trump-supporting “Santos 2.0”.

Mr Suozzi also out-raised his opponent three-to-one, taking in $4.5m during the campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings.