The party has turned to a moderate veteran, Tom Suozzi, to restore its tarnished brand. But the migrant influx reaching New York has complicated his task.

Just two months ago, George Santos’s expulsion from the House looked like everything Democrats could have asked for. It gave them an open Republican seat in a winnable New York district, with an electorate still reeling from the congressman’s spectacular unraveling.

The party even had a name-brand candidate, Tom Suozzi, who had won the seat easily three times before.

But with less than a week to go before the Feb. 13 special House election, a wave of suburban discontent fueled by the crush of migrants arriving at the southern border and in New York City has helped transform a potential Democratic pickup into a statistical dead heat.

“If I run my campaign and just say, ‘I’m Tom Suozzi, I’m a Democrat and my opponent is a Republican,’ I’ll lose this race,” Mr. Suozzi told union carpenters on Saturday at a rally on Long Island. “People are upset Democrats haven’t been tough enough on things like the border.”

Non-paywall link

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    You mean the manufacturered migrant crisis that the Republicans have consistently made exceedingly worse purposely as a weapon against Democrats? That migrant crisis? Rather than just passing laws and helping these people these assholes are essentially sending waves of homeless migrants all across the country, not as much to make a point but as a political weapon to piss off the NIMBYs to turn them into Republican allies.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        Bingo! Any decent human being can see this.

        As noted non-decent human being Churchill once noted on similar criteria, “But madam, we need a majority!”

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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      9 months ago

      Yeah they did the same right before the 2020 election. All we heard about were “migrant caravans.” Suddenly after the election, it wasn’t brought up again until now.