[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning. everyone. The surprise ending to the Tom Suozzi-Mazi Pilip race. It wasn't that close. It didn't have to be, if you think about it, if Republicans had only realized that George Santos was to lying what Pat Mahomes is to quarterbacking, they wouldn't have had a congressman expelled during his term and this special election wouldn't have happened at all. In this Queens in Nassau County District where Republicans have been trending since 2020, the polls that showed it neck and neck did not turn out to be right, as Democrat Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip by about eight points.

Who voted how within the district? What do we learn about all of Long Island and perhaps all of suburban swing district America from this outcome? What can't we learn because of this district's particularities and of these candidates and maybe even the effects of yesterday's snow? Here's the lesson Suozzi wants us to take away.

Tom Suozzi: For the people of Long Island and Queens are sick and tired of the political bickering. They've had it. They want us to come together and solve problems. Now we have to carry the message of this campaign to the United States Congress and across our entire country.

[cheering]

Brian Lehrer: In defeat, Mazi Pilip.

Mazi Pilip: We are fighters. Yes, we lost, but it doesn't mean we're going to end here.

Brian Lehrer: With us now, WNYC senior political correspondent, Brigid Bergin, and Newsday columnist and editorial board member, Randi Marshall. Hi, Brigid and Randi, nice to have you. Welcome to WNYC.

Brigid Bergin: Hey, Brian.

Randi Marshall: Hi there.

Brian Lehrer: Randi-

Randi Marshall: Hi, nice to see you.

Brian Lehrer: -why do you think Suozzi won, and why by eight points? Was it really that people in the district wanted a moderate as he suggested in that clip and saw him as it?

Randi Marshall: I think that this district knew Suozzi. Let's not forget that Suozzi was a known name and known quantity. They knew what they were getting. They may not have even liked everything they were getting, but they knew what they were getting, and I think after Santos, that appealed to people. I also think that Suozzi's moderate message and leaning into issues like border security, which became a big one during the campaign, really did help Suozzi to get his message across, and even whether Republican, Democrat, what have you, that moderate message probably appeals in the end.

Brian Lehrer: We'll talk about immigration, we'll talk about Trump, we'll talk about race and ethnicity, but Brigid, what would you add to why Suozzi won, and why by this margin?

Brigid Bergin: I think the other way to ask that question would also be why did Pilip lose? To Randi's point, while Tom Suozzi was a real-name brand across this district, Mazi Pilip is a new political newcomer. She's in her second term in the Nassau County Legislature and she really did not campaign across the district in the same way that Suozzi did. If you were covering this campaign, you would have thought this was the first time Suozzi ran for office. He was doing events all the time, he was going to local civic organizations, he was holding regular press conferences, he would sit down with anybody.

On the other side of that, you have the Pilip campaign that did these very tightly choreographed events, they rarely let her go out onto the campaign trail without having almost a handler with her, someone from the Nassau County GOP joining her on the stump, and she spoke really very little throughout the campaign. Given that we were coming from the George Santos saga, there was something, I think, voters had a sense of that they really wanted to know who they were voting for. They needed to get to know this candidate, even if she would have been the person maybe they were more inclined to support, but the party didn't give voters a chance to do that.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you be the political analyst, especially if you live in the Queens and Nassau district and we've talked many times about what this district is, Northeast Queens, Bayside, Little Neck, Douglaston around there, and the North Shore of Nassau County, and some areas further to the south in Nassau County, North Massapequa, Levittown, a few others. If you live in the district, first priority, but anyone may call, you be the political analyst. Why did Tom Suozzi beat Mazi Pilip? What does it mean nationally for November or any questions for our guests, WNYCs Brigid Bergin and Newsday's Randi Marshall?

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. Randi, were there any exit polls in this race from Newsday or anyone else indicating what people's top issues were?

Randi Marshall: As far as I know, there were no exit polls specifically, which is unfortunate, but we were just saying, over the course of the vote yesterday, how we wish that there were some exit polls in the mix. Newsday has done a lot--

Brian Lehrer: Can I just jump in and say, I'm so surprised? I was expecting exit polls because there was such a national focus on this as a bellwether for how swing district Democrats and Republicans might run all year. I'm surprised to see that there was no exit polling, but I guess nobody wanted to spend the money.

Randi Marshall: I think that's probably true. They were spending a lot of money on commercials and all sorts of other things in this race. I will say that despite the fact that there were no exit polls, I think we have a really good sense of what voters were talking about. Newsday did a lot of reporting over the last several months, and especially yesterday in terms of really trying to understand what voters were talking about. Certainly, the number one issue was the border and border security, and also the migrant crisis in New York City, which Republicans have attempted to spill over into the suburbs, even if it doesn't actually spill over to the suburbs.

It certainly does spill over into the Queen's portion of the district. Although, interestingly, the Queen's portion of the district, which includes Creedmoor and those types of areas and Eastern Queens, came out in--

Brian Lehrer: Where there was a big migrant population, right?

Randi Marshall: Population, correct.

Brian Lehrer: The city put a lot of people at the Creedmoor facility. Go ahead.

Randi Marshall: That Queens's population came out in force for Suozzi and one of the ways that we knew early that Suozzi was doing perhaps better than we anticipated, is because those Queens numbers were coming out, and the difference, the margin was far bigger than, I think, folks anticipated, and then it was in the Zimmerman-Santos race. I do think that that certainly helped Suozzi. That Queens population, Suozzi's former colleague, Grace Meng, another congressman in the district was out there every day for him. I think that actually helped to swing the race as well.

On an issue like the border, Suozzi leaned into it. He didn't pooh-pooh it. He didn't say that's not really an issue. He didn't ignore it. He said, "A, it's an issue, and B, I support that bipartisan border deal, and she doesn't. If she's not going to support the border deal, how can she then turn around and say the border is a problem?" He really leaned into that. I think that was very helpful for him, actually, right at the end of the race, and I think that may have played a role in this victory as well.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think, Brigid, that this was about Trump to any degree saying this weekend that he encourages Russia to attack NATO allies and that people thinking that that was in America first position too far offended by that or Trump in any other way? I see in the news this morning, Trump is out trashing Mazi Pilip as "foolish" for not more clearly aligning herself with him, and Trump blamed a low turnout among the MAGA base.

Brigid Bergin: Yes. I do think that unfortunately, for these candidates, both former President Trump and President Biden are not particularly popular in the district. When Biden was in town recently, the Suozzi camp did not want him coming out to the district to help campaigning, this was just last week. However, I do think that the Trump brand is something that is potentially harmful for Republicans in this district. It's why I think we didn't know whether or not Mazi Pilip had voted for the president. She was asked by Newsday, by others repeatedly throughout the campaign, and it was not until just this past weekend, that she told The New York Post that she had, in fact, voted for him in 2020 and had voted for him proudly.

There is some damage to that brand and to the MAGA Republicans in this part of the district. The other piece that I think we haven't talked about yet that really did help Suozzi, was this really diverse group of supporters who were on the ground for him, knocking on doors, making phone calls, beyond just the campaign itself. There were organizations that came out so explicitly to try and combat some of the messaging that they were hearing coming out of the Republican campaign. Even if maybe Suozzi wouldn't have been the candidate they chose, they really saw this race as something that was existential. That they needed to hold onto it as a statement to push back against some of these Right-leaning policies and also to, in some ways, defend democracy in someone who wanted to support the elections.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take our first caller. This is Jim in Bayside, which is in the district. Jim, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jim: Hi. How are you? Thanks for taking my call. I just had a question about, if Suozzi was benefiting by his support of the bipartisan immigration deal, do you think that that will carry over into the presidential election as far as voters' dissatisfaction with this bipartisan push as the best possible deal right now?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, dissatisfaction with the rejection by Speaker Mike Johnson and by Trump of the bipartisan deal, which would've had some effect, at least at the border, plus aided Israel, and Ukraine, and Taiwan. Brigid, I'll stay with you on this. It's too early to really know, one of the things that I was wondering is that since the border deal from the Senate was so new, it only came out last week, was it even around long enough to flip a lot of people's votes? Maybe it was, and what do you think about the national implications?

Brigid Bergin: I was at an event with the Suozzi campaign last Sunday, which was the first Sunday of early voting. It was just before the deal had been announced, but it was clear that Suozzi had been talking to people in Washington because as he was delivering his remarks, and he was looking around the room, had the deal been announced yet? I think he had the sense that it was coming, and what it gave him was an opportunity to say, "I have been saying and agreeing with you that this is a problem, and now here we have a bipartisan solution, a way to move forward."

The same way, as he would often say, he would point back to a plan that he had developed with former Congressman Peter King back in 2019 called the Grand Compromise, another path forward to reforming immigration. Ultimately, he tried to say that in order to solve these problems, you have to work across the aisle. You have to come up with solutions where not everybody gets what they want, but we can address this problem, and to just say something is a problem and not offer any sort of policy solution isn't how you govern. There's the difference between identifying the problem and actually coming up with solutions to address it.

I think there is a way for Democrats, and we've already heard it. Governor Kathy Hochul, who as we know ran against Tom Suozzi in the Democratic primary in 2022 was on MSNBC this weekend talking about how the fact that Republicans tanked this bipartisan deal and now this becomes an issue, the Democrats can say, "Look, we have identified the problem, we agree with you that it's a problem. We've come up with a solution, but now you want to prevent it from moving forward because your candidate, who is likely the front-runner for your ticket, Donald Trump, says he opposes it."

Brian Lehrer: Randi, I'm going to ask you about the most common kind of comment that we're getting in our text messages. I'm going to read one as standing in for the group, but we're getting a lot along these lines, and tell me what you think. One listener writes, "Pundits are overthinking this race, that it was abortion versus the border. The GOP miscalculated one thing, never underestimate the racism in Nassau County, an Ethiopian would never win out there." What do you think?

Randi Marshall: This race was not, in my opinion, a bellwether, or a sign of things to come, or a bigger message than what this particular district at this particular time wanted to say. I do absolutely agree that there is some degree of racism in parts of this district. I don't know if that played a role, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if it did. I do wonder if the choice of Mazi Pilip-- To me, the choice of Mazi Pilip was a different choice had October 7th not happened and I don't know that they would've chosen her had October 7th not happened.

I do wonder whether this race would have gone differently or whether the dynamic of the race would have gone differently if, for instance, former NYPD officer Mike Sapraicone, who was in the mix early on as a choice had been chosen. We'll never know, although Mike Sapraicone might be back for more come November, we don't know yet, but I do wonder if that would have been a different dynamic in this race. I will say this, I don't think this was only about race. Mazi Pilip had some problems in her campaign, and in who she was, and what she was doing beyond the color of her skin.

She had a lack of preparation, a lack of knowledge of the issues. We have written a fair amount about our previous endorsements regarding her race where we did not endorse her for the legislature, where she didn't have some basic facts at her fingertips. It was shown during the debate and at other times that she didn't seem to have the basic facts at her fingertips on a variety of issues. I would say that while I think race may have played a role, I don't think it was the only issue that hurt her as a candidate in this race. She was unprepared, she showed herself to be unprepared on a variety of these issues.

To Bridget's point, a lot of times they would have handlers with her, surrogates who spoke on her behalf, even at her own press conferences. I think that may have played more of a role than anything else in terms of the way people saw her candidacy. I wouldn't completely discount race as an issue in this campaign either.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Rick, in Glen Cove in the district, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rick. Thank you for calling in.

Rick: Hi. Good morning. Thanks again. I absolutely agree with what she just said. When you watch Mazi Pilip at any of the press conferences or even at the last debate, she just did not come across as prepared, she didn't seem to understand a lot about the issues that we're all thinking about. She seemed to be a rubber stamp, and I absolutely agree that if October 7th hadn't occurred that they would not have gone with her. She allowed them to put somebody who was Israeli out, front, and center, they thought that that was going to be a big issue, it turned out to be less of an issue.

For me as a voter, I think what was most important are a few things. First of all, the immigration issue, it's not as big of an issue for me as it is for some other voters because I know that we're trying to get something done. I'm a Democrat, trying to get something done, and the fact that Trump would pressure Republicans in Congress and Mazi Pilip to vote against this bill where Suozzi was for it, is just unconscionable. We're trying to get things done, and they're playing political games. Abortion is a big issue as well, and she is so wishy-washy on the whole abortion issue. She agrees with a woman's right to choose, but she wanted the abortion ban to take place.

[crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: She calls herself pro-life.

Rick: Right, she calls herself pro-life. Then she was for the overturning of Roe. What is she? Is she one or the other? I think from that perspective, I think we want somebody who's moderate in Congress. If she had come across like a moderate, that would've been a different story, but she didn't. That's what swayed me.

Brian Lehrer: Rick, thank you very much. Brigid, I think she was trying to come across as a moderate on abortion by saying she did support the Dobbs decision, turning the abortion rights question back to the States, but that she would not vote for a national abortion ban in Congress because she believes that it's not her place to tell a woman what to do with her body. Maybe she was trying to give too much of a mixed message, although I thought perhaps it was a weakness, or let's say, a moral failing of the Suozzi campaign to emphasize that she was being backed by the Conservative Party, which does support a national abortion ban because Pilip made it very clear that she would not support that, and yet maybe as the caller suggests, that was just all too muddy.

Brigid Bergin: Yes, I think, as we have said, there weren't many opportunities to hear Pilip really talk about her positions. In one of those times that we were able to hear from her, that one debate that took place on News 12, the exchange she had with Suozzi over the issue of abortion was a muddled position. She did try to say that she herself was pro-life as the mother of seven, but would not want to impose her views on another woman or limit their healthcare choices, but as we've seen, that's a very difficult needle to thread when you're in a situation where, does that mean she would break with her party if there was a policy on the floor? She said she opposed a national abortion ban, but do we know that she would be willing to stand up to her party? It's hard to know that when you've had so little conversation with a candidate ahead of an election.

Brian Lehrer: More coming in on demographics. One listener writes, "Oh, please stop playing the racism card. Pilip is unqualified, and that's why she lost." Someone else writes, "As an African who grew up in Nassau County and now lives in Suffolk, I'll tell you that some of the racists out here probably thought she was related to Ilhan Omar." That's all over the place. Then another listener writes a question. Randi, I don't know if we can answer this question, but the question is simply, "Do we know the demographic breakdown of who voted how?"

Randi Marshall: We don't. More data will come out as we delve into the results and we see it by election district. We'll be able to delve a little bit into that. This is to the caller's point, a very diverse district. We've done some analysis. Our data journalists here have done some analysis looking at this district. It's an incredibly diverse district, and Suozzi played into that. He went out and shook hands. The ground game was incredible, not only from his surrogate but from himself where if you've met Suozzi on a campaign, he gets to know you. He asks your name, he asks where you're from, and then he remembers it the next time he sees you.

That's a really unique quality that he has, that he does himself that I think does appeal to voters, and that plays into the diversity of this district and the diverse interests of the district. I do think that that certainly played a role here, but we don't know exactly who voted how. We'll be able to learn a little bit more of that as we see the maps and we know by election district how many people voted, where they turned out, where they didn't turn out. Again, I will say that people were going out into the Asian communities, the Jewish communities, the African-American communities of this district, and really trying to get out the vote in ways that I honestly haven't seen in the last several years particularly in the Nassau part of the district, but also in the Queens part. I do think that played a role in the ultimate Suozzi win.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with our Brigid Bergin and Randi Marshall from Newsday and more of your calls. Nina in Woodbury, we see you, you'll be on. Ann in Great Neck, we see you, you'll be on. More to say about the outcome of the Suozzi Pilip race and the national implications. Interesting to hear Randi, a few minutes ago, say maybe the national implications are being overplayed. We'll explore that more. Stay with us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Tom Suozzi: They want us to start working together. Our message is very clear, either get on board or get out of the way.

[cheering]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, the surprise ending in the Tom Suozzi-Mazi Pilip Congressional race to replace George Santos, the surprise ending, it wasn't that close. Suozzi won by eight points after the polls had it neck and neck, and so there was Tom Suozzi with a little bit of his reason why. To the victor goes the final soundbite of the segment. There was Tom Suozzi as we're talking about it with Randi Marshall, columnist and editorial board member for Newsday, and our senior political reporter, Brigid Bergin. Let's go right to another call. Nina in Woodbury in the district. You're on WNYC. Hi, Nina.

Nina: Hi. It's the first time I've ever called. I voted for Suozzi. I have to say I am a Democrat, but I felt that every time that Pilip said something, it was something that I had never heard before. All of a sudden, halfway through, she's Jewish, then she's this. She didn't talk about the real important issues. It just made me feel that this was another Santos, and that the Republicans were trying to pull the wool over our eyes, and that we were going to be in big trouble if we voted for her. The final straw was the signs for Suozzi that had been all over disappeared. They were taken away all the time, and I said, "Oh, the Republicans are up to their old dirty tricks." That did it for me.

Brian Lehrer: Nina, thank you very much. Thanks for calling. Brigid and Randi, hold your thoughts on that call for a second, though, there are a few things to chew on there. Let me get Ann in Great Neck in next in the district. Ann, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Ann: Hi. I've actually called in before. I called in a couple of years ago about a crazy school board election we had. I've been volunteering in the district in local elections since 2018. This one was absolutely singular. I have never seen so much enthusiasm, so many volunteers. I was on a get-out-the-vote phone banking thing on Monday night, and there were 147 people in that Zoom room. Most of them from outside the district. People from California and Texas, it was insane. I've never seen this level of volunteerism, so I tend to think that this might be a truly special election.

I don't know what this says about future elections or even what's going to happen in November nationally. I think he hit on some issues really effectively, but I think that this is an unusual district.

Brian Lehrer: Being that you're involved somewhat with the process, did you get any sense of why people voted more for Suozzi? Is it any different than what we've been saying so far?

Ann: I didn't get a good sense. I was only talking to Democrats. We were trying to nudge to the polls after early voting was over. I did do some door-to-door canvassing in Port Washington over the weekend. People don't really talk about it. They just tell you if they voted or they're going to vote or if they have a plan or if they have a ride to the polls. I didn't really get into it with people. I feel like they shut down when you start asking them why they're voting.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you this, though, as someone who did canvassing, one of the things that I was wondering about, and I brought it up with Suozzi when he sat for his campaign interview here last week, was about whether running as a moderate, as much as he was and against the progressive wing of his own party as much as he was, whether that might dampen turnout because, yes, you need swing voters, but you also need turnout from your base. I was wondering if he was taking a calculated risk there that might backfire.

Did you get a sense that there were maybe younger or more progressive voters of any age in the district who were maybe a little apathetic about Tom Suozzi because of how much of a centrist he ran?

Ann: I can only talk about my own experience, which is I am a progressive, and I was not enthusiastic about him when he ran in the past. I was very enthusiastic because of what we've been through for the last few years. I got my 22-year-old son who hates politics and is so far beyond being a progressive that he thinks I'm reactionary. I actually had to drive him, but I got him to go and vote for Suozzi on Sunday. I just don't know. He didn't really talk about what his friends are up to. I think that's a risk, but I don't know how many diehard progressives there are in the district who aren't going to vote for him.

Brian Lehrer: In this particular district.

Ann: This is a strange district. It really is.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Interesting that you call yourself a progressive, but your kid thinks you're a reactionary. Listeners, we're going to be talking about that later in the show, we're going to do a segment specifically on the generational divide in Jewish households over what's going on in Israel and Gaza right now. That's coming up after the 11 o'clock news. Randi, going back to the previous caller, Nina in Woodbury, who had this sense that maybe people didn't trust Pilip because of what happened with Santos, and here again, was a candidate who was chosen to be demographically a unicorn, right?

George Santos, he was a gay Jewish Latino volleyball star. No, he wasn't a volleyball star. That was supposed to be attractive in a particular way, and here was Mazi Pilip, a Jewish Black immigrant woman. At least that one caller suggests that, "Oh, Santos was too good to be true. Maybe Mazi Pilip's identity was fake also."

Randi Marshall: Pilip's identity is not fake as far as everybody can tell. I think she had quite a story to tell, and I do think that's one of the reasons why she was chosen. Her story is compelling and interesting and of the moment, especially as I said before, in light of October 7th and in the wake of October 7th, but I don't think that that was enough because A, there were some flags in her story. There were issues in terms of, she wasn't really a paratrooper. She was a gunsmith. Some of the details were murky, but B, to go back to what we've been saying, she just could not define what she knew, and why she was running, and what she would do if she got into Congress. People were just on edge after Santos. I think they wanted the known quantity, and that for this district was Suozzi.

You can't get more known in this district than Tom Suozzi, for better or for worse. To the second caller's point, some progressives may not really like Tom Suozzi, but they certainly weren't going to vote for Mazi Pilip. With Tom, they knew what they were going to get. I do think that played a very, very big role here.

Brian Lehrer: Brigid, do you have any indication that the Republicans overplayed the amount that October 7th might have played in this election, choosing Mazi Pilip to some degree demographically because of her background living in Israel, being in the Israeli Defense Forces and maybe they overestimated how much that would be a factor?

Brigid Bergin: I think that if there had been more daylight between Pilip and Suozzi on that particular issue, that it might have been a more persuasive issue for voters, but the challenge for Pilip was that Suozzi was not disagreeing with her in terms of how much the US should support Israel. One of his first acts after he was picked to run in this race was, in December, he took a trip to Israel. One of the few events that they actually appeared at together, besides the debate, was with the parents of a hostage who was taken on October 7th. This was not something where she could really use it so much as a wedge beyond having a close personal connection to the country and to the issues.

I think that that became a challenge for them. You build on top of that, if you don't have her out there telling her story, then it makes it very hard, even though it is a persuasive biography, she was not out there talking to voters and really trying to use it to the extent she could. It was certainly part of every introduction you've ever heard about her, but beyond that, what was she going to do with that when she was elected, it was very unclear.

Brian Lehrer: Here is Barbara who is not in the district, who's in Manhattan, but says she's a conservative Republican and has a theory about what happened there. Barbara, you're on WNYC. Hi. Did I identify your politics right there?

Barbara: Yes, you did. My name is Barbara. I'm a Latina Republican conservative, which in New York is a unicorn. In my opinion, I agree with so much of what you had to say today, is I think that they ran a poor candidate. I want to remind you that she is a registered Democrat. She was never a Republican. I think that the Republican base was not motivated to go and vote for her. Also, I want to remind you that she refused Trump's help with this campaign. She did not get the support from the MAGA Republicans. The Nassau GOP, specifically, walked away from any help from the New York Young Republicans, which were willing to help.

Santos would not have won his election without the New York Young Republicans going out there and knocking on doors. Additionally, Queens has been trending right, and she didn't put any time into putting her focus there into getting the vote out in Queens.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting.

Barbara: I would say that, in my opinion, don't judge November's elections by this election. This was a very unique and unusual situation. That's all I have to say.

Brian Lehrer: Barbara, thank you so much. Please, call us again. Yes, she is right about that part of Queens, which a lot of people may not know has a MAGA city council member in the last two elections, Vickie Paladino, so trending that way, but very interesting observations from Barbara in Manhattan there. Let's end on a little conversation about how much of a national bellwether this actually is. The national media has been focusing on this as an early test of how to campaign in suburban swing districts all over of the country with control of Congress, of course, very much in play this year.

I wonder how much each of you thinks this is a bellwether for elsewhere and how much maybe you think it's not. We heard what Barbara just said about why it may not be. Also, Randi, I know you were questioning earlier whether this is such a bellwether. This is a very demographically New York suburb, significantly Jewish, significantly Italian and Catholic, significantly Asian American, about 18%. This was the so-called Gold Coast, the affluent north shore of Nassau County, for the most part. I read the median household income in the district is around $130,000. Very high by national standards.

Maybe this is economically and demographically fairly different from the suburbs of Atlanta, the suburbs of Phoenix, the suburbs of Milwaukee where the presidential election and other congressional races will be fought right from the start. What do you think?

Randi Marshall: Yes, I agree. First of all, to Barbara's point, this is an incredibly different district than what a lot of the other suburban districts across the country look like. I do believe that this was a specific moment in time, a specific set of candidates, a specific set of circumstances that are not going to be repeated over and over and over again across the country come November. As I said earlier, I don't see this as a real bellwether. I do think it is a demographically, economically, and otherwise very particular district where it's not the same as it is elsewhere.

They also have a different set of values, a different set of issues at times. We haven't talked about SALT yet, the state and local tax deduction, but that was a big issue for this district, which is not an issue necessarily elsewhere in the country. Another issue that Suozzi was able to really lean into and talk about with authority. I just don't really see the model of sorts of this district necessarily replicating itself elsewhere. I do think the candidates can learn a thing or two by being bipartisan and by seeming moderate in some ways. I do think that can help, but I don't think you can take this district and replicate it anywhere.

Brian Lehrer: Brigid, I'll promote your article on Gothamist and give you the last word. Brigid does have an article with our New York State reporter Jon Campbell called What does Tom Suozzi's big win in NY-3 mean for the November elections? You've got a list of things that it might mean, things that it might not mean. How would you like to wrap this up?

Brigid Bergin: As Randi said, I think it is absolutely true, special elections, in any election really, are moments in time. There are a lot of unique characteristics about the events leading up to them, the voters who are turning out. This is what I would say about what we can take away from this from November. We saw Suozzi talking about issues that Democrats often shy away from. He talked about immigration, he talked about public safety. As Randi said, he talked about SALT taxes. Rather than being in a responsive position, he was attacking on some of those issues and pointing to the fact that we have, right now, a House majority that has been able to accomplish very little.

Even on the things that they point to as the biggest problems, even on the things that across the board people say are the biggest problems because there's so much infighting within the party itself, they've been able to do very little. The other thing that I think is definitely something that we will see more of across races to come is an emphasis on making sure that you don't leave voters on the field, so to speak. The Democrats went out and went after every voter in this district. As we talked about, they had a huge ground game. They also put a huge emphasis on making sure that people participated in early voting and vote-by-mail, something that in years past Republicans have really sowed doubts on the liability of early voting and vote-by-mail.

What happens if you have a snowstorm on the day of an election? Well, then you have voters who may have participated that can participate on election day. I think that will be part of the strategy likely for both parties going forward.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC's senior political correspondent, Brigid Bergin, and Newsday columnist and editorial board member, Randi Marshall. Thank you both so much.

Randi Marshall: Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: Thanks, Brian.

 

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