New York’s third congressional district has elected a replacement for serial liar and indicted former Congressman George Santos.
Democrat Tom Suozzi won the New York race to succeed Santos, beating Republican Mazi Pilip, the Associated Press reported.
Santos, who was expelled from the House of Representatives in December, is one of several Republican departures in the lower chamber that shrunk the GOP’s already slim majority to only seven votes. Suozzi’s win narrows the GOP’s House majority.
In May of last year, Santos was arrested and indicted on 13 criminal counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, and lying to Congress. In October, 23 additional counts were added to his case, among them conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, aggravated identity theft, theft of public funds, and making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives.
Before his expulsion from Congress in December, Santos was also the subject of a congressional ethics investigation that found evidence that the ex-New York representative had spent campaign funds on OnlyFans, Botox, Hermes accessories, spa treatments, and Sephora beauty hauls. This combined with his habitual lies and preexisting criminal allegations of donor identity theft and credit card fraud — even against another lawmaker — led to a historic vote to forcibly remove him from the House.
Then-incumbent Souzzi defeated Santos in 2020 during his first run for Congress. Santos attempted to pull a Trump and claimed the election had been manipulated against him, even going so far as to speak at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., the day before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In 2022 — after Souzzi declined to seek reelection — Santos managed to turn the Democratic district red, defeating Democrat Robert Zimmerman by eight percentage points.
Even before Santos was sworn in, reports were already circulating that the incoming representative had fabricated much of his professional resume and personal backstory — including lying about his work with well-known financial institutions, his education, the circumstances surrounding the death of his mother, and his “Jew-ish” ancestry. Just days after Santos was officially sworn in, the Nassau County Republican Committee called for his immediate resignation. By late January 2023, 78 percent of voters in his district felt he should step down from office.
The special election to replace him pitted Suozzi against Mazi Pilip, a registered Democrat running as a Republican.
Pilip was born in Ethiopia to a Jewish family which immigrated to Israel when she was a child. A former service member in the Israeli Defense Force, Pilip was first elected to the Nassau County Legislature in 2021.
The race between the two New York lawmakers has been widely considered a litmus test for the upcoming slew of down-ballot elections that will take place in November. Immigration, abortion, and the conflict between Israel and Hamas dominated policy discussions leading up to Tuesday’s vote.
In a heated debate last week between the two candidates, Souzzi grilled Pilip over her stance on abortion and immigration — and made pointed comparisons between Santos’ lack of experience holding national office and her own fledgling political career.
“My opponent is unvetted and unprepared. We’ve been down this road before with George Santos. We can’t go down this road again,” Souzzi said at one point, later taking a dig at Pilip over her refusal to agree to more than one debate. Pilip in turn attempted to present Souzzi as a party man beholden to the politics of President Joe Biden.
During his tenure in the House, Souzzi built a reputation as a moderate Democrat and member of the Problem Solvers Caucus. In his pitch to voters, the former congressman is hoping his bipartisan chops will win over independent, conservative-leaning voters exhausted and embarrassed by Santos’ saga. Pilip is “anti-choice, she’s pro-guns, she won’t support the bipartisan immigration deal,” he said Monday in one of his last speeches to voters. “By not supporting that deal, you’re keeping the border open and bringing more migrants to New York. By not supporting that you’re endangering Israel. You’re empowering Putin. People are sick of that.”
Pilip enjoys heavy backing from Nassau County Republicans, who are looking to reassert themselves following national attention in the wake of Santos’ many scandals and indictments. As reported by The New York Times, Nassau County GOP Chair Joseph G. Cairo Jr. hand-selected Pilip as the Republican candidate to replace Santos, offering her his own campaign services. The country party has engaged in a tour-de-force to boost Pilips’ run. Cairo Jr.’s success in bolstering Republican turnout throughout the mostly suburban district has made him a model for local GOP organizing.
“We have to accept the fact that the Republican machine in Nassau County is the strongest it’s been since I was the county executive,” Suozzi told supporters earlier this month, “We took the wind out of their sails for a good 15 years and, guess what? They’re back.”
Souzzi’s victory is a blow to the House GOP, which has for months now struggled to overcome its own internal struggles and the stranglehold the most extreme wing of the caucus has on its narrow majority. Democrats facing a contested election in 2024 may also have something to learn from Souzzi’s strategic moderation. As for voters in New York’s Third District, hopefully Souzzi’s election means a break from the drama ushered in by Santos’ rise and demise.
