Tom tops Mazi

 

Long Island Press

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove)  has defeated Nassau County Legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip (R-Great Neck) in the special election to replace disgraced former Rep. George Santos in New York’s third congressional district. 

As of press time, the Associated Press had Suozzi winning by a margin of 55% to 45%.

The third district covers a portion of northeast Queens, as well as the entirety of the Towns of North Hempstead and Oyster Bay. With Suozzi’s election, he is now the sole Democratic congressman on Long Island, with the three other seats being held by Republican Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Andrew Garbarino, and Nick LaLota.

“The only way we’re gonna be in trouble is we let ourselves continue to be divided from within,” Suozzi said in his victory speech. “So this whole campaign has been about how do we communicate to people that we can be better if we work together to try and solve the problems we face in our country, and that’s the message.”

Suozzi held this seat from 2017 to 2023, and comfortably won election to it three times – perhaps most notably when he defeated the then-unknown Santos in 2020. However, Suozzi’s elections to the district were prior to the 2022 redrawing of the district’s lines. With Santos’s large margin of victory over Democrat Robert Zimmerman in 2022, and Suozzi’s slim margin of victory over Pilip, the new district, which now includes portions of southeast Nassau County such as Levittown and Massapequa, may be more of a swing district than it was under Suozzi’s previous tenure.

“I want to say how proud I am of all of you,” Pilip said in her concession speech. “Yes, we lost but it doesn’t end here. I called my opponent to congratulate him. I want to thank chairman Cairo for his hard work. We are not going to give up. We are going to bring common sense to government.”

 

GOP candidate chickens out of debate for congressional seat to replace Santos

 Queens Chronicle

For weeks former Rep. Tom Suozzi has criticized his opponent, Mazi Pilip, the Republican Party’s nominee in the special election to replace George Santos, for her failure to commit to several televised debates.

The only one the Nassau County legislator has agreed to is one with News12 Long Island, which Queens residents cannot access.

“By hiding and refusing to debate the important issues that Queens voters care about, Mazi Pilip is showing the same lack of transparency that George Santos did,” Kim Devlin, senior advisor to the Suozzi campaign, said in a statement. The campaign also noted that the News12 debate is set for Feb. 8 — five days after early voting is set to begin.

While Suozzi, a Democrat, has repeatedly asked on social media and in press releases, “What is she hiding?” her failure to respond to requests from Telemundo and NY1 — as both outlets have confirmed (Suozzi says she has not responded to WABC, either, but the outlet did not answer the Chronicle’s inquiry) — to participate in their debates poses another question: Why would a candidate who is new to the Queens Republican scene not want to make herself known to roughly a third of the district’s voting population?

Aidan Strongreen, Pilip’s campaign manager, replied to that question just before the new year by saying Pilip “has opened a productive and enjoyable dialogue with the media and the public” on the issues, and that she is “interacting with many residents from Queens, and is accessible to people throughout the 3rd District.”

Pressed further on why Pilip has not accepted several debate invites, communications director Brian Devine told the Chronicle via email Tuesday that while Pilip “will continue to be a visible presence” in the Queens section of the 3rd Congressional District, “Unfortunately, her schedule has quickly filled up, making some other requested debate dates unworkable.”

But St. John’s University political science professor and analyst Brian Browne said both candidates’ approaches to the debates are strategic.

“This is a familiar tactic of Tom Suozzi’s,” he said. “He did this when he ran in 2006 in the primary for governor against then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer ... He did this when him and Jumaane [Williams] were primarying [Gov.] Hochul two years ago.”