Overcoming dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and a surge in migrant arrivals that has played to Republican strengths , former U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi , a Democrat, won Tuesdays special election to succeed ex-Rep. George Santos in New Yorks 3rd Congressional District.

Suozzi defeated Nassau County Legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip , a Republican, in a Long Island and northeast Queens seat that is nearly identical to the one he previously represented for three terms.

Suozzi had vacated the seat in 2022 to mount a quixotic bid for governor, prompting an open race where Santos, a Republican and federally indicted serial fabulist, won. (Congress expelled Santos in December, prompting the special election.)

In election-night remarks that were briefly interrupted by pro-Palestine protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Suozzi emphasized the need to unite the country behind common goals and relished in his opponents failure to paint him as an open-borders leftist.

Despite all the attacks, despite all the lies about Tom Suozzi and the Squad, about Tom Suozzi being the godfather of the migrant crisis, about Sanctuary Suozzi, despite the dirty tricks, despite the vaunted Nassau County Republican machine we won! he declared to cheers from the crowd at an upscale wedding venue in Woodbury, New York.

Democrats takeover of a GOP-held swing seat at once narrows Republicans already slim majority in the House, and provides a much-needed jolt of momentum for the party in the White House.

Getting a win in a tough special election in a district that was trending red is a big boost and shows Democrats continue to defy expectations, said Eric Koch, a spokesperson for Battleground New York, a progressive coalition fighting to help Democrats win the five Empire State House seats that Biden carried in 2020.

Biden carried New Yorks 3rd by eight percentage points in 2020, but polling currently shows him losing the district in a head-to-head rematch against former President Donald Trump. Suozzis victory suggests that there is a playbook for Democrats in swing seats struggling to overcome Bidens unpopularity and frustration over the influx of asylum-seekers and other migrants that has occurred on Bidens watch.

Suozzi affirmed his commitment to border security in two TV ads , and in the final days of the campaign, slammed Pilip for opposing a bipartisan Senate deal to shore up the border after Trump warned that it would benefit Biden. Whats more, Suozzi and his allies were apparently able to get the latter point across without the benefit of advertising and direct mail, since they decided that there was too little time to make it a worthy topic for paid communication.

Trump handed Suozzi a gift, while Suozzi was in a defensive crouch on immigration, said Larry Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University. He was able to flip the script a little bit and say: See, this is an example of what you would get if you elected another Republican.

At the same time, a defeat for Suozzi would have been doubly devastating for Democrats who went all in for him. Suozzi and the groups backing him jointly spent $13.5 million on TV advertising about $6 million more than their Republican counterparts.

Battleground New York knocked on 100,000 doors for Suozzi in just over a months time, securing 10,000 commitments to vote for Suozzi.

The road to a Democratic House majority runs right through New York, which is why Battleground New York jumped right into this hard-to-predict special election, Koch said.

The Democratic Party had understandably hoped to capitalize on the existing embarrassment of Santos scandal-plagued term with a special-election win that could generate forward momentum ahead of a November election beset by concerns about Bidens standing. Making a dent in Republicans wall of support in Long Island, where suburban voters have galloped to the right since 2020 in defiance of national trends, was as sure a way to do it as any.

The nature of a special election on a short timeline also provided New York Democrats a critical stroke of fortune. The party got to anoint Suozzi , a former mayor of Glen Cove and Nassau County executive, as nominee without a messy primary.

If a guy like Tom Suozzi, with his name recognition and accomplishments in local government and in Congress, and with all the money he had to spend, still lost, then the Democratic Party could be in a lot more trouble than some people already think, Levy said, speaking before Election Day about a hypothetical outcome.

Suozzi succeeded in making the race a competition between two candidates Suozzi vs. Mazi and their respective merits. He blasted her for avoiding press scrutiny for the first month of the campaign, and agreeing only to a debate on Feb. 8, just five days before the conclusion of voting.

At that debate, Pilip appeared plainly outmatched. In an exchange about whether she supported a national assault weapons ban, Pilip said that she supported a ban on automatic rifles, even as Suozzi pointed out that automatic rifles have been illegal for decades.

My opponent is unvetted and unprepared, he said alongside Pilip onstage. Weve been down this road before with George Santos. We cant go down this road again.

He likewise cast doubt on Pilips commitment to abortion rights, by noting that, among other things, she supported the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision returning abortion to the states, and refuses to identify as pro-choice. Pilip maintained that while she is personally pro-life, she supports a womans right to an abortion and would not back a national ban without specifying what that means. At a Friday press conference touting her law-enforcement-union endorsements, she also declined to answer HuffPosts question as to whether she would vote for the ballot initiative in November that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Pilip, an Ethiopian-Israeli immigrant and veteran of the Israel Defense Forces, argued, however, that the grumbling about her evasiveness reflects the liberal medias bias against a Black woman who did not conform to their stereotypes.