Tom Suozzi said voters in northeast Queens and Nassau County deserve a fellow suburbanite to fight for their way of life as he made the first official campaign stop in his quest to win back his old seat, following former Rep. George Santos’ expulsion from Congress.
“My father was born in Italy. My mother came from Queens. I understand what it’s like to be here in suburbia, and to try and live that American dream,” Suozzi, the newly named Democratic candidate for New York’s third Congressional district, told a small crowd gathered in the backyard of a home in Levittown, Long Island.
Suozzi represented the district from 2017 to 2022 before embarking on a failed run for governor. Levittown was a thematic choice for the campaign as it’s considered the nation’s first official suburb; symbolic of the themes Suozzi plans to hammer during the race, with a focus on the concerns of suburban homeowners.
He said people were hurting over “real bread and butter issues,” like reconciling soaring house prices and healthcare and retirement costs with stagnant wages. The Nassau and Queens Democratic leaders picked Suozzi as their best bet to win back the once-blue seat that Santos turned red, with a special election set for Feb. 13.
“I’m always trying to say: I don’t care what your politics are,” Suozzi said at the Saturday event hosted at the home of a lifelong Republican and former NYPD officer, according to his campaign. “I’m a Democrat, I’ll always be a Democrat, I’ll never abandon my values. But I’ll work with anybody. I’ll work with anybody who wants to work together to actually solve the problems that people face.”
Santos was expelled from Congress this month over ethics violations. The move followed tow previous expulsion attempts and came roughly a year after a series of scandals began to plague the freshman Republican, who falsified parts of his personal biography and was indicted on a litany of fraud charges relating to his campaign.
While Republican party leaders have not yet announced their candidate, the race is shaping up to be an early test of each party’s ability to energize and turn out voters in a presidential election year, when control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate will be at stake.
It’s also become an increasingly important race when it comes to the dwindling majority Republicans hold in the House right now, which shrank by another seat this week with former House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s announcement that he plans to resign at the end of the month.
Republicans have notched some significant wins in Long Island in recent elections — including all four congressional seats in 2022 — and flipped back more than a half dozen state legislative seats that Democrats won in 2018. Republicans hold both county executive posts in Nassau and Suffolk, along with town supervisor posts in Hempstead, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay. The race is currently rated a “toss-up” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Suozzi pitched himself as a fellow suburbanite deeply frustrated with the state of play in Washington, a year after he left office following an unsuccessful Democratic primary against Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“I’m looking at Washington, D.C., and I’m saying ‘Hey, something’s not working in Washington,’” he said. “It’s gotten worse. It’s scary. And I see so many people that are so fed up with the system and they’re, like, politically disengaged and politically disenchanted.”
Savannah Viar, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Suozzi’s campaign would fail to resonate with voters.
“Tom Suozzi’s attempted comeback tour will be playing all the hits: self-enrichment, defunding the police, and raising taxes (just to name a few),” Viar said in a statement. “Voters will reject Suozzi just like they did in his failed bid for governor last year.”
Suozzi was once flagged by the House ethics committee as part of an inquiry into insider trading, but it ultimately dismissed any charges against him.
A spokesperson for Suozzi did not immediately respond to the statement. A spokesperson for the Nassau County GOP did not immediately return a request for comment.
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