President Joe Biden carried New York’s 3rd Congressional District by 8 points just four years ago. The freshman GOP congressman here, George Santos, was expelled from the House after a damning scandal.
Then Democratic bosses made a safe choice by selecting a former congressman from the area with decades of political experience — Tom Suozzi — to take on a little-known Republican, Mazi Melesa Pilip, who is new to the national scene.
And, leaving little to chance, Democrats are pummeling the airwaves, outspending Republicans by nearly $4 million in the two-month race to fill Santos’ seat.
Yet just over a week before the February 13 special election, it’s Democrats who are sounding the alarm.
“It’s a very tough seat,” Suozzi told CNN. “Democrats have been losing everything on Long Island and northeast Queens for the past three years. The Democratic brand is in trouble here, and we have to do a lot to overcome that.”
The blunt warning from Suozzi underscores what officials in both parties are seeing in the closing days of the race: Voter anger over the handling of the southern border has become a central issue — especially as scores of migrants have been sent to New York, many of whom now live in this district that encompasses parts of Queens and Long Island. It’s a strategy that mirrors the GOP’s successful campaigns from 2022 when Republicans railed on crime in New York City — something Suozzi concedes still hurts the Democratic brand.
It’s Suozzi who now has endured an onslaught of GOP attacks over immigration — forcing him to put out two ads defending himself — as he tries to seize on the issue by promoting his own push for legislative action and support for the Senate’s bipartisan deal.
And the 61-year-old Suozzi — a…
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