Opinion | Tom Suozzi Makes the Democrats Look Good for a New York Minute

Hey, Tom Suozzi beat Mazi Pilip. Are you excited?

OK, I know it was only a congressional race in the New York suburbs. But he stomped her! The Democrats had been truly afraid that voters would be too cranky about the border and Biden Boredom to rally around a career politician whose greatest claim to fame was quite possibly his time as Nassau County executive.

Suozzi hardly super-embraced Biden. (“The bottom line is he’s old.”) But he was certainly less standoffish about his party’s leader than Pilip, a Republican who spent most of the campaign declining to say who she’d voted for in 2020.

And this was, truly, a big Biden win. Congressional races are mainly about the party and its leaders. The candidates are sometimes very, very colorful. Or very, very scary. But the only thing that really matters is which side has the most votes. Thanks to the folks in New York’s Third Congressional District, the Republican edge in the House is now even itsy-bitsier — a mere three irritable members are enough to ruin any plan.

Feel free to dwell on this. We’ve got nine months of presidential politics to get through. Nine months of Joe Biden’s age and Donald Trump’s … well, you pick your favorite. For now let’s go with his comments on NATO — encouraging Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to member states that don’t pay up. Or his recent insistence that Taylor Swift is bound to come over to his side because he made her a lot of money. Or — OK, I know you really don’t want to go on.

Suozzi is not exactly a romantic figure. He’s a career politician who chose to not seek re-election to run unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, a decision that very temporarily gave America an unexpected gift: Representative George Santos.

Remember that? It was the first time Republicans elected an openly gay non-incumbent to the House. Very exciting for a minute or two, until we discovered Santos had lied about pretty much everything else: education, jobs, criminal history, kindness to animals. He did, however, make history on one front, becoming only the sixth member of the House to be kicked out of office by his comrades since the founding of the Republic.

(Toward the end of the campaign, Democrats ran commercials comparing Pilip to Santos, but she was pretty darned successful in keeping him off her team — so much so that Santos announced he wasn’t planning to vote.)

After Santos left, the House Republicans were stuck with a majority so narrow they couldn’t even manage to accomplish some of the most mindless partisan posturing on their agenda.

“Miss me yet?” Santos posted on X after his former colleagues initially failed to get enough votes to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security.

I think I speak for virtually the entire politically aware universe when I say, um, no.

So here we are. The district that gave us George Santos has traded him in for Tom Suozzi.

It bears repeating that this was a stupendous win for Biden and the Democrats, even though Suozzi frequently seemed reluctant to remind the electorate which party he belonged to. He was just a guy who wanted to increase border security and stuff. Pilip, meanwhile, basically ran around the district hollering “It’s me! The Republican! Republican! I said, Republican!”

Pretty much all she wanted to talk about, really. Although to be fair, Pilip’s biography is way more interesting than Suozzi’s. Born in Ethiopia, she immigrated to Israel, where she worked with the paratroopers. Moved to the United States about 20 years ago, around which time Suozzi was preparing for his first unsuccessful race for governor.

But let’s give the man credit. And a little time to enjoy his victory, since the Third District is going to look very different in November, when Suozzi will run for re-election. Because of a court ruling, the state once again has to redraw all the congressional boundaries in New York, and we will be hearing a whole, whole lot of charges of gerrymandering. There is no way you want to discuss gerrymandering right now, although it is sorta comforting to know that this is one of the few issues in which both parties are prepared to be equally nefarious when they have the chance.

The only thing you need to dwell on right now, people, is that the Democrats won another seat in the House. When Suozzi is sworn in, the Republicans will have a squeaky majority of 219-213. Making life even more miserable for House Speaker Mike “Boring Isn’t Necessarily Bad” Johnson.

Demonstrating that while the nation is nervous about immigration, voters are cool with people like Suozzi who claim there can be a “grand compromise” that will calm things down. And perhaps crucially, that people are beginning to notice that boring isn’t necessarily bad. “Let’s send the message to our friends running the Congress these days, stumbling around for Trump — to start running the country,” the congressman-elect told his cheering supporters.

It was, to be honest, a pretty dull victory speech. But that’s the message, right? We’ve had enough drama. Let’s just get some stuff done, quietly.