It’s Election Day in the 3rd Congressional District race to replace ousted former Congress member George Santos, and the inclement weather could throw an unexpected wrench into turnout.
Polling shows Democratic candidate Tom Suozzi and Republican candidate Mazi Pilip are neck-and-neck in a race that could have national implications as Republicans cling to the narrowest of majorities in the House.
Democrats and Republicans around the city – even nationally – are zooming in on this special election, where immigration, the conflict in the Middle East and chaos in Washington are taking center stage.
Turnout in the race was already expected to be low because it’s a special election, but as the region prepares for up to 8 inches of snow Tuesday and New York City public schools going remote, turnout may take a further hit as voters stay home to avoid potentially treacherous roads, adding another layer of the uncertainty to this election.
Election officials in the city and Nassau County say they plan to proceed as normal, with polling places remaining open.
So far, nearly 67,000 people cast their ballots in the race during the nine days of early voting, according to data from the city and Nassau county election boards. That’s about 13% of the roughly 530,000 active voters in the district.
Of those who voted early, 44% are registered Democrats, 33% are registered Republicans and 19% are unaffiliated voters, according to a Gothamist analysis of voter data from the city and Nassau County boards of election. Party registration, however, is no guarantee of how a person casts their ballot.
Republicans are banking that Pilip, a registered Democrat and two-term Nassau County legislator and her unique background as an Ethiopian-born immigrant from Israel and Orthodox Jewish mother of seven, will turn out enough voters for the party to retain control of this one-time Democratic district.
Democrats are pinning their hopes on Suozzi and his three decades of political experience as they aim to flip this district back to blue. Suozzi held the seat for three terms before giving it to make an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2022, the year Santos was elected. He’s also served as Nassau County executive and Mayor of Glen Cove.
The rare mid-February election comes roughly two months after Santos was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives after an ethics investigation last year documented gross misconduct. He continues to face 23 criminal charges and has pleaded not guilty.
Not unlike the former representative, the race to replace Santos has been anything but ordinary.
Despite longstanding name recognition in the district — which spans part of eastern Queens through the north shore of Long Island — Suozzi holds only a slight four-point advantage over Pilip, at 48% to 44%, with a margin of error also roughly four points, the latest Newsday/Siena College poll shows.
For undecided voters, there was only a single televised debate between the candidates to help them understand where the pair stand on issues.
Here is a recap of what the candidates have said about the issues dominating this race — how close they are on topics might surprise you.
Immigration
Both candidates unequivocally say that the current state of the southern border is unacceptable.
Pilip has repeatedly accused Suozzi of not taking action on immigration issues while he served in Congress and often points to actions he took while serving as Nassau County Executive when he instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents to leave the county.
“When you are in the majority in Congress, you voted to open the borders, you created the migrant crisis and you kicked ICE from here,” Pilip said in last week’s debate.
Suozzi explained that he instructed ICE to leave Nassau County after his Police Commissioner said that the federal agents were attempting to execute warrants at incorrect addresses and even had altercations with Nassau County police officers. “They pulled guns on Nassau County Police Officers,” Suozzi said. “My Police Commissioner asked me to stop working with ICE.”
But in Congress, Suozzi said he voted to support the federal agency a decade later.
“In 2018, when I was in Congress, I was one of only 18 Democrats that voted to fund ICE,” he said. “I went against my party,” he said during the debate.
In terms of how they would each address immigration issues bubbling to the surface now as tens of thousands of migrants have made their way to New York, Suozzi and Pilip largely agree.
Pilip said she supports efforts to continue, “building the wall, increase more border control members. And on top of it, we have to make sure we need to be tight when it comes to asylum seekers.”
Suozzi’s on the same page, saying that he supports adding more agents at the southern border and reducing asylum seeker processing time, items that were included in the bipartisan immigration proposal from the U.S. Senate last week.
“I’ve been talking for years about the need for a bipartisan compromise. We now have a bipartisan compromise. I will support it, my opponent won’t,” said Suozzi.
Whenever Suozzi talks about how he would approach the migrant crisis, he points to his work in 2019 with former Rep. Pete King, a Long Island Republican, to draft a bipartisan approach to reforming immigration. Ultimately, he said the parties need to come together to make a deal.
Abortion
As a mother of seven, Pilip said that she believes women should be able to make their own decisions about reproductive health care. She said she would not support a national abortion ban. However, she has also said she supports the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Suozzi said access to abortions should be safe, legal and protected. He opposes the state-level abortion bans that have been implemented after the high court’s Dobbs decision and has taken aim at Pilip’s support from state Conservative Party, which seeks to prevent abortions and calls for the appointment of “pro-life Justices.”
Israel-Hamas war
There’s little daylight between the candidates on this issue.
Both candidates strongly support additional funding for Israel in the country’s war against Hamas. But Pilip has leaned into her deep personal connection to Israel, having fled Ethiopia for Israel to avoid religious persecution in 1991.
Suozzi is also an unwavering backer of Israel, traveling there in December, shortly after launching his campaign.
One of the rare joint appearances between the candidates during the campaign was at an event last month calling for the release of an Israeli hostage taken during the October 7th attacks.
Last week, Suozzi broke with his party when he called for passage of a standalone bill to provide aid to Israel.
“While I would prefer that the House Republicans support the comprehensive bipartisan package in the Senate that supports Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan and FINALLY addresses the border, my unequivocal support for Israel demands that I support this stand-alone bill,” Suozzi said in a statement.
Presidential politics
Throughout the race, Pilip has spent most of her time campaigning joined by other Republican elected officials from the area. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito has been with her on the trail a handful of times. She has avoided questions about her support for former President Donald Trump throughout most of the campaign, attempting to avoid a question from Newsday in December saying, “Why will I answer something like this?” and later calling it a “personal question.”
But she told the New York Post last week that she proudly voted for Trump in 2020.
During an appearance on Fox 5 NY on Monday, Pilip went further describing why she supported Trump saying he was, “mentally stable, healthy and he served the American people as a president. He did great things for our country, he improved our economy, he was very strong on the international stage, he brought the peace process to the Middle east. He supported Israel. He was great.”
Suozzi has acknowledged that Democrats, including President Joe Biden who won the district by 8 points in 2020, are facing an uphill battle in this election.
Republicans have made gains throughout Long Island in elected offices at every level in the three subsequent election cycles. When President Biden was in town for fundraisers last week, he did not go to the 3rd Congressional District district to campaign. Recent polls show him with a 57% unfavorable rating in the district.
“The Democratic brand is in trouble here, and we have to do a lot to overcome that,” Suozzi told CNN last week.
When asked about Biden’s age in an interview with Fox 5 NY on Monday, Suozzi said, “the bottom line is he is old.” He said he would likely support his re-election in November, “if he ends up being the Democratic candidate.”
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