Suozzi beats Mazi: Queens carries Suozzi to victory in congressional special election
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Democrat Tom Suozzi won a decisive race on Tuesday for the Queens-Long Island 3rd Congressional District. AP photo/Stefan Jeremiah
By Ryan Schwach
Democrat Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip to win the special election for the 3rd Congressional District on Tuesday evening, overwhelmingly winning in the Queens portion of the district.
Suozzi retook the seat he held for more than half of decade on Tuesday in a race Democrats hope proves they can win in swing districts and potentially retake the majority on Capitol Hill come November.
Though Pilip and her Republican surrogates attempted to persuade voters that Suozzi would exacerbate the migrant crisis in New York and at the border, voters ultimately chose to go with the conservative Democrat.
After early voting numbers seemed to skew Democrat, Tuesday’s winter storm and snow accumulation – the most the metro area has seen in three years – threatened turnout numbers. However, around 110,000 Queens and Long Island residents still turned out to vote on election day.
As of noon on Wednesday, the state’s Board of Elections results had Suozzi pulling in
91,338 votes to Pilip’s 78,229 – a decisive margin of victory in what was considered to be a close local race.
Results in the Queens portion of the district began to trickle in shortly after polls closed at 9 p.m. on Tuesday. The results from Nassau County lagged behind.
The Queens part of the district, which includes the Northern and Eastern Queens neighborhoods of Whitestone, Beechhurst, Clearview, Bayside, Bay Terrace, Broadway-Flushing, Little Neck and Queens Village, only makes up about a quarter of overall voters.
But Suozzi’s performance in Queens was so decisive that the Associated Press called the race in his favor shortly after 10 p.m., long before many of the results in Nassau had been reported.
Suozzi won nearly two thirds of the total Queens vote, pulling in 61 percent to Pilip’s 33 percent, and by a margin of around 5,700 votes.
Compared to Democrat Robert Zimmerman’s performance in 2022 against the eventual winner of the seat, disgraced former Congressman George Santos, Suozzi did better in blue districts and lost by less is red districts.
In the southeastern portion of the district, encompassing neighborhoods like Dougleston, Little Neck, Glen Oaks and Queens Village, Suozzi won by wide margins.
In the Queens portion of the 3rd Congressional District, Tom Suozzi dominated the vote, widening margins in districts he won and shortening them in districts he lost compared to the 2022 race for the seat, which was won by George Santos. Screenshot via atlasizer.com
Suozzi pulled in 65 to 80 percent of the vote in the voting districts surrounding Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, the site of one of the city’s largest migrant shelters and an epicenter for community animosity towards the migrant crisis, a major talking point for the Pilip camp.
In other Eastern communities like Glen Oaks, Suozzi never performed worse than 54 percent, and got up to 90 percent in districts encompassing the heavily Democratic and Jewish North Shore Towers.
In Little Neck and Bayside, Suozzi swapped districts that Santos won by more than 10 points in 2022, winning them by double digit margins.
Pilip performed her best in the heavily red voting communities of Whitestone, pulling in around 70 percent in areas bordering the East River.
However, Suozzi made up ground in those same districts, securing a higher percentage of the vote than Zimmerman did against Santos in 2022.
Political strategist Hank Sheinkopf isn’t surprised by the outcome of Tuesday’s special.
“Mazi Pilip was a flawed candidate, and Tom Suozzi was a known commodity,” he said. “Is this outcome entirely predictable? The answer is no. Is it a surprise? Probably not.”
While Sheinkopf believes that the race could potentially have a positive effect on Democrats chances in local races, he was hesitant to say that could be the case for the country as a whole. Sheinkopf said this was due to the characteristics of the race, specifically Suozzi’s pre-existing relationship with voters.
About a half hour after AP called the race, Suozzi gave a victory speech from his Election Night party at a Woodbury Country Club in Long Island, which was twice interrupted by protestors calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“We won, we won this campaign because of the people of Queens and Long Island,” he said.
Suozzi spent much of his speech speaking about what he sees as a divided country, and said his campaign was a success because of his ability to reach across the aisle and quell political divisions.
“This race was fought amidst a closely divided electorate that looks much like our whole country,” he said. “This race was centered on immigration and the economy, much like the issues all across our country. We won this race because we addressed the issues and we found a way to bind our divisions.”
“The people of Long Island and Queens are sick and tired of the political bickering,” he added. “They've had it. They want us to come together and solve problems, so now we have to carry the message of this campaign to the United States Congress and across our entire country.”
Pilip said she called Suozzi to concede and congratulate him on his victory, but said it wouldn’t be the end for her.
Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip, who conceded shortly after the race was called Tuesday night. AP photo/Mary Altaffer
“We are fighters,” she said in her concession speech from Franklin Square. “Yes, we lost, but it doesn’t mean we are going to end here.”
When Pilip says the fight is not over, it is not far from reality, since both Republicans and Democrats now need to direct their attention toward November, and the actual election for the New York 3rd Congressional District.
Although it is almost assured that Suozzi will remain the Democratic nominee, it is yet to be seen if local Republicans will once again back Pilip for their ticket. Several of the Republican challengers who had filed before the special election was announced could also secure the nomination.
Sheinkopf doesn’t believe the nomination will be Pilip’s.
“The Republicans will probably seek someone else, but it will be hard to be Suozzi…he has momentum,” he said.
Another major variable at play is redistricting, which is expected to be completed soon and could see the demographics of the district change, thus changing who might be able to run and who may or may not be a viable candidate.
