Former Rep. Suozzi New York Democrats’ Pick to Run in Special Election

MINEOLA, N.Y. — Former Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., who left Congress last year to make an ill-fated bid to be New York’s governor, has been chosen by the state’s Democrats as their candidate in the Feb. 13 special election to replace ousted Republican Rep. George Santos.

In a joint statement, Jay Jacobs, chair of the Nassau County and New York State Democratic Committee, and Rep. Gregory Meeks, chair of the Queens Democratic Committee, said Suozzi “has a proven record of fighting for his constituents, fighting to safeguard our suburban way of life and advocating for sensible solutions to the real challenges affecting everyday average Americans.”

“We look forward to working with the Suozzi campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to restore integrity, competence and a focus on the real needs of our larger community in the 3rd Congressional District,” Jacobs and Meeks said.

Santos was expelled from Congress last week after months of revelations about his alleged misdeeds and untruths.

Over the course of his brief political career, Santos was accused of engaging in a number of crooked schemes involving campaign donations and lying about huge swaths of his personal and professional biography.

Among those falsehoods were claims, made both in writing and orally, that he worked at both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, amassing a small fortune in the process.

He also claimed to be descended from Holocaust survivors; said his mother was in the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11 attacks; and that he lost four employees in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.

His purported lies made him the subject of a 23-count federal indictment and led to an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which released a scathing, 56-page report about Santos two weeks ago that brought the matter to a head on Friday.

A superseding indictment filed in October tacked on additional charges over accusations he inflated his campaign finance reports and charged donors’ credit cards without authorization.

With his expulsion, Santos became the first person in history to be tossed out of the House without first either being convicted of a serious crime or engaging in an insurrection by supporting the Confederacy.

“The folks from Massapequa and Levittown to the north shore of Nassau, to northeast Queens deserve better,” Suozzi said in a statement Thursday evening. “I will work day and night with both parties to deliver for the people to make living here more affordable, safer and better. I delivered for this district before, and I will do it again by putting you ahead of partisanship. Let’s reject the nonsense and get back to work. Let’s fix this!”

But while Suozzi’s selection was widely expected, it did not come without some effort on his part.

In choosing to run in a primary against incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul last year, Suozzi evidently made a bitter enemy, one who reportedly toyed with blocking his nomination.

During last year’s primary campaign, Suozzi repeatedly referred to Hochul, who had replaced a disgraced Andrew Cuomo and is New York’s first woman head of state, as an unqualified “interim” governor.

He also repeatedly accused both her and her husband, William J. Hochul Jr., a former U.S. attorney turned vice president of a Buffalo-based casino and hospitality company, of fostering a “culture of corruption” in Albany.

In April 2022, Suozzi assailed the governor, accusing her of engaging in “secretive meetings, pay-to-play, abuse of state aircraft and insider deals that resulted in the billion-dollar tax giveaway for the Buffalo Bills.”

He also criticized her at length for her handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, Hochul summoned Suozzi to the state capitol in Albany — a three-to-four hour drive from his home on Long Island — for what several political insiders called a “come-to-Jesus meeting.”

Hochul said she wanted to talk to him that night.

Suozzi cleared his schedule and was on his way.

According to both published accounts and those of individuals steeped in New York politics, Hochul wasted little time once the two were behind closed doors, essentially presenting him with a number of demands.

First, she wanted to know how he planned to run in a district that has changed considerably even in the short time he’s been out of office.

Secondly, she wanted him to agree to run as a vocal defender of abortion rights, including the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions.

Though Suozzi has earned high marks from Planned Parenthood in the past, some abortion rights advocates have also questioned his commitment to the cause.

Lastly, she wanted him to promise not to run campaign ads that would damage the Democratic Party’s brand or disparage members of his own party.

This last request definitely stemmed from their primary battle, when Suozzi ran as the solution to the crime and corruption he said occurred under her watch.

Suozzi is said to have agreed to each request, and then went on to apologize for the aggressive nature of his attacks, particularly those that reflected on her family.

Suozzi later thanked Hochul publicly for a chance to clear the air, but she evidently let him leave without confirming that he had her blessing.

During a press conference Wednesday, Hochul was asked about the meeting, which by then had been reported on in detail by The New York Times.

“I wanted to have an opportunity to talk to him directly about what his plan was, how he would run his race,” the governor said.

Hochul went on to explain that as governor and leader of the Democratic Party in New York, one of her priorities is helping her party win back a majority in the House and making House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. the next speaker.

In light of that responsibility, Hochul said she wanted to discuss whether Suozzi had a real avenue to win in the district “because we had to put forward the strongest candidate in that district.”

She added: “There were other candidates to consider. Everyone knew that I could look at a variety of candidates and I was looking for someone I thought could win, but also that was an important conversation to clear the air in one respect, so it was in his interest to make sure the conversation went well,” Hochul said.

It’s not clear Hochul could have actually stymied Suozzi’s desire to run had she wanted to do so. He already had the backing of Jacobs, as well as Jeffries.

And early last Monday a bipartisan group of Long Island mayors — six Republicans and five Democrats — formally endorsed his potential candidacy, signally the early momentum in the race was all going his way.

“Today’s endorsement makes it clear that this race is not about Democrat versus Republican or Republican versus Democrat,” Suozzi said.

“These mayors understand that this race will be about who knows the district best and who will deliver results for the people in the 3rd Congressional District,” he said.

One of those mayors, Cove Neck’s Tom Zoller, a Republican, said he could not “be more pleased than to have Tom Suozzi return to represent the north shore of Long Island.”

“His energy and positive approach to serving his constituents is unmatched. Politics aside, Tom is an outstanding, honest and caring individual,” Zoller said.

Other Republicans, however, believe Suozzi may have a tough race ahead.

One longtime member of the Nassau GOP, speaking on background, said the district — and the county itself — has simply changed over time.

Prior to serving as a House representative, Suozzi was Nassau County executive from 2002 to 2009, and he was mayor of Glen Cove, on the north shore of Long Island, from 1994 to 2001.

At the time, the town of North Hempstead, in which Glen Cove is located, was a Democratic stronghold in a predominantly Republican county. So too was the county’s south shore. Now both are firmly in Republican hands.

“Everybody’s a Republican now,” the GOP member said. “Last year, the party swept everything, even the judicial races. This year could be even bigger, if that’s possible.”

The big issue — and one Suozzi tried to exploit against Hochul — is crime.

“It’s the no-bail laws in New York City, which butts up against the 3rd Congressional District, that has a lot of traditionally Democratic voters in places like Great Neck, switching their votes to the Republican Party,” he said.

“Someone shoots someone in New York City, they don’t go to jail; they’re out on bail. So people are afraid. That’ll be an issue in the race and make it difficult for Suozzi to keep his promises to the governor.

“The other thing is the migrant situation,” he continued. “They’ve got tents up, housing the thousands of male migrants at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, which is right near the line between Queens and Nassau County, and people living in places like Floral Park and Bellerose, traditionally suburban communities, are afraid to let their kids play on the front lawns because they’re afraid of people they don’t know.

“The reality is, when people are afraid of crime, they vote Republican. They can’t wait to vote Republican. That’s what enabled Santos to get elected. He was anti-crime.”

The GOP member also suggested another avenue for an opponent of Suozzi to take this time around.

“What I’d say is, ‘Look, this guy didn’t want to represent you anymore. He left, opening the door for Santos.’ I’d also use the meeting with Hochul against him. I’d say, ‘He got in trouble for challenging his own party. What did he have to promise to get back in its good graces? Is he going to become more progressive now?’

“Because that’s what Hochul and Biden want, and both are very much out of step with the sentiments in that district. It’ll be interesting to see what happens,” he said.

Larry Levy, the longtime political columnist for Newsday, and the current executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, echoed many of these sentiments.

“Santos’s lies had nothing to do with him winning in 2022,” Levy said. “The Republicans let him have a place on the ballot in 2020, when he lost to Suozzi, and again in 2022, because they didn’t think they could win in the 3rd Congressional District and nobody else wanted to run in the district.

“Because he wasn’t seen as competitive, nobody — including most journalists — bothered to check him out,” Levy continued.

“But people in that district were voting against Democrats in 2022, any Democrat. They might’ve voted for Suozzi, because he was well known, but it would’ve been a very close race in 2022 even for him,” he said. “And it’s going to be a very close race in the special election in a couple of months because the same forces — forces that have weakened Democratic support in the district — are still in play.”

Levy said the district, once a bastion of Democratic support, now reflects “the anti-Biden” feeling that’s in evidence in national polls.

“At the same time, the fear of crime has pushed certain groups, like Asian voters, to vote Republican, and orthodox Jews are now a reliable part of the Republican base, something that was unimaginable a generation ago.”

Given these trends, Levy said, “Santos could’ve not told a single lie and still won in 2022.

“That’s the irony,” he said. “As long as he wasn’t a Democrat, people were going to vote for him if his name was on the ballot. And the Republicans were glad that somebody wanted to run.”

Savannah Viar, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, was already taking aim at Suozzi Thursday night.

“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). Voters will reject Suozzi just like they did in his failed bid for governor last year,” she said.

Among other things, the committee, which is the political wing of the Republican conference in the House, is already blasting Suozzi for using cash from his campaign committee in 2000 and 2001 to pay himself over $37,000 in rent.

The committee is also pounding him for voting against a motion to condemn calls to “defund” or “dismantle” police departments, and accusing him of dramatically raising property taxes and instituting an energy-use tax when he was county executive.

New York Republicans are expected to announce their candidate for the seat early next week. 

The frontrunners for the GOP nomination are Nassau County Legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip and ex-NYPD officer Michael Sapraicone.

Because the special election is being held to fill Santos’s unexpired term, the seat will again be contested in November, with both parties expected to have primaries before then.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue