© Reuters. Republican congressional candidate for New York’s third district, Mazi Melesa Pilip, arrives for early voting at a polling station in Massapequa, New York, U.S., February 9, 2024. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
By Joseph Ax and Makini Brice
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Democratic former congressman Tom Suozzi received a particular election in New York on Tuesday, Edison Analysis projected, narrowing an already razor-thin Republican majority within the U.S. Home of Representatives that has struggled to cross laws.
The competition grew to become vital after the Home took the extraordinary step of expelling Republican George Santos, whose dizzying array of lies about his biography led to his indictment on fraud fees.
Suozzi, who beforehand held the seat earlier than stepping right down to run for governor, defeated Mazi Pilip, an Ethiopian-born Republican county legislator who served within the Israeli navy. The district features a small nook of New York Metropolis and a few of its jap suburbs.
The end result leaves Republicans with a 219-213 majority that has already confirmed arduous to handle, illustrated by the chamber’s failure final week to cross a measure to question President Joe Biden’s high border official, Alejandro Mayorkas, which fell brief by one vote when just a few Republicans voted no.
The Home authorised the measure on Tuesday, after No. 2 Republican Steve Scalise returned from most cancers therapy to solid a decisive vote.
In the meantime, Democrats retained their slim majority within the Pennsylvania state Home of Representatives on Tuesday after successful a particular election in a Philadelphia suburb. Republicans, who already management the state Senate, would have taken over the Home with a victory.
The New York district, which supported Biden in 2020 earlier than flipping to Republicans within the 2022 mid-term elections, has served as a testing floor for each events’ messaging forward of the autumn election, when the presidency and management of each chambers of Congress can be at stake.
“This race could be a bellwether for swing suburban districts around the country that are going to decide who controls the gavels of Congress,” stated Lawrence Levy, govt dean at Hofstra College’s Nationwide Heart for Suburban Research.
Turnout, already anticipated to be mild for a particular election in February, was additional depressed by a winter storm that blanketed the area on Tuesday morning with a number of inches of heavy snow, prompting each campaigns to supply free rides to polling locations within the afternoon.
Immigration was a central difficulty, because it has been elsewhere within the nation forward of an anticipated rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump in November.
Pilip repeatedly hammered Suozzi and the Democratic Occasion on the problem, accusing them of failing to regulate crossings on the southern border with Mexico. Pilip was endorsed by a labor union for Border Patrol officers.
“I kept migrants from being sent to Nassau and will secure the border when I get to Congress,” Pilip wrote in a Fb (NASDAQ:) publish, referring to New York state’s Nassau County.
Suozzi, who represented the congressional district for six years earlier than stepping down and operating unsuccessfully for governor, referred to as Pilip’s assaults towards him deceptive and stated she has been wanting specifics on how she would deal with border safety.
He touted his personal bipartisan immigration compromise and criticized Republicans for rejecting a border safety deal negotiated within the Senate, which collapsed after Trump urged Republicans to spurn it.
“Ms. Pilip points out there’s a problem, there’s a problem, there’s a problem. She has no solutions,” Suozzi stated within the election’s solely debate.
He additionally attacked Pilip on abortion, a problem that Democrats have put entrance and heart because the U.S. Supreme Court docket eradicated a nationwide proper in 2022. Pilip stated she is personally towards abortion however didn’t help a federal ban.