The coming special election to replace Republican former Rep. George Santos in a well-educated and affluent district outside New York City will offer important clues about the political crosscurrents shaping the suburban areas that could decide the 2024 election.
Resistance to the Donald Trump-era GOP in white-collar suburban communities has allowed Democrats to perform much better than expected both in the 2022 midterms and elections through 2023. But local Democrats are warning that the Santos seat – which he won in 2022 despite President Joe Biden carrying the district two years earlier – may be tougher for the party to recapture than many national observers expect.
That’s because the biggest exception to the trend of growing Democratic suburban strength in recent years has been the Long Island suburbs of New York City. That includes the 3rd Congressional District, formerly held by Santos, who was expelled last week by the House of Representatives and faces 23 felony criminal counts, mostly for misusing campaign funds.
Since 2021, the GOP has steadily gained ground in both Nassau (the core of Santos’ former district) and Suffolk counties on Long Island, largely around concerns about crime, immigration and inflation, including the high cost of housing. The special election to replace Santos, likely to be held in February, will measure how powerful those issues remain for Republicans. It willl also test whether Democrats can reverse their decline on Long Island by presenting the Trump-era GOP as too extreme and pledging to defend legal abortion – arguments that have worked for Democrats in similar places.
“This will be a local litigation of issues with national salience,” Democratic former Rep. Steve Israel, who represented an earlier version of this seat, said in an e-mail. “The special election will be tricky for both parties. While Democrats have…
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