Dems post another pair of special election wins
Former congressman Tom Suozzi won the special election on Tuesday for the Long Island congressional seat recently held by “serial fabulist and expelled former GOP Rep. George Santos,” as CNN framed it. Santos won the seat by 8 points in 2022. Suozzi, a Democrat, defeated Nassau County GOP legislator Mazi Pilip by nearly 8, a 16-point swing in Democrats’ favor. The win shaves House Republicans’ majority thinner than it was on Monday (New York Times):
The outcome flipped one of the five House seats Democrats need to retake the majority in November, giving the party a badly needed shot of optimism. But Mr. Suozzi’s campaign also provided something that may prove more valuable, a playbook for candidates across the country competing on turf where President Biden and his party remain deeply unpopular.
The strategy went something like this: Challenge Republicans on issues that they usually monopolize, like crime, taxes and, above all, immigration. Flash an independent streak. And fire up the Democratic base with attacks — in this case, nearly $10 million in ads — on the abortion issue and former President Donald J. Trump, the likely Republican nominee for the White House.
“It’s a very interesting lesson to Democrats that you can escape your opponent’s attacks on immigration by not only leaning into the issue, but doubling down on it,” said Steve Israel, a former congressman from the district who once led the House Democrats’ campaign arm.
“Instead of trying to pivot around the issue, he charged into it,” Mr. Israel added.
Timidity is not an effective campaign strategy. Offense is.
“Worth noting that Suozzi bashed Republicans for killing the border deal in the home stretch of the race,” tweeted Greg Sargent of The New Republic, “which also suggests it’s good politics for Dems to be associated with wanting to make a deal (its specifics aside) and bad for Rs to be associated with killing it for Trump.”
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes observed on Threads, “If the shoe were on the other foot, Dems would be freaked out and frankly I think R’s should be way more freaked out than they are. This should have been very favorable terrain! The whole race was run on ‘their’ issue. They still lost.”
In a Pennsylvania state House special election in Bucks County, Democrats won again (Washington Post):
Democrat Jim Prokopiak was also projected to win a Tuesday special election for a state House seat in Pennsylvania, building his party’s narrow edge in a chamber that until recently was deadlocked 101-101. He beat Candace Cabanas after tying her to Trump and what he called “extremists” in the GOP, echoing national Democrats’ 2024 message.
“Donald Trump has turned the Democratic Party into the Kansas City Chiefs of special elections,” Joe Scarborough noted this morning.
It’s fine if Republicans double or quadruple down on what’s not working. But will Democrats elsewhere learn from this election what is? Will they fight their reflex to hunker down and play defense instead of offense?
Hayes quips:
I wrote recently that the constant refrain among Democrats that this is (like every damned one) the most important election of our lifetime only inspires them to adopt a defensive posture, to do the same thing they’ve always done, the way they’ve always done it, just more of it. When it’s the most important election of your lifetime you don’t take chances, don’t experiment. Also, you don’t adapt, don’t grow. That’s what’s killing the GOP now.
Cut it out. Take the win and learn from it.
“Joe Biden is a good president. The country is far better off today. The Democratic Party is winning elections all across the country,” strategist Simon Rosenberg tells MSNBC.
“We keep winning and they keep losing.”
Republicans are on their back foot. Democrats have to keep them there.
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