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Democrat Tom Suozzi's special election victory in New York's 3rd Congressional District against Mazi Melesa Pilip indicates how President Joe Biden could go on to win the 2024 election, political analysts have said.
Suozzi comfortably won the race for the seat vacated when disgraced former Republican representative George Santos was expelled from Congress after being charged with multiple fraud offenses to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Suozzi defeated Pilip by nearly eight points (53.9 percent to 46.1 percent), with a majority of the votes counted, according to The Associated Press. The Democrat's victory arrived despite several polls before Tuesday's election suggesting that the race was neck and neck, or showing Suozzi just marginally ahead.
The Democrat's win means that the GOP's already slim majority in the House has been reduced even further, giving Biden a boost heading into November's general election.
In the wake of Tuesday's special election results, some political experts suggested that it could prove to be a blueprint for how the 2024 election could unfold.
Suozzi, a centrist, campaigned on bringing in tougher immigration laws and strengthening border control policies. The Democrat also suggested that Pilip would not be able to protect abortion rights in places like New York if elected to Congress.
Hot topic issues such as abortion, immigration and crime are sure to play a key role in the presidential election, which is expected to be between Biden and Donald Trump. Numerous 2024 election polls suggest that Trump is currently leading Biden in the close race.
The Republicans' push for stricter abortion rules in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case that quashed Roe v. Wade's guarantee of federal access to abortion, was seen as a major factor in the GOP severely underperforming in the 2022 midterms, where polls wrongly suggested that there would be a "red wave" of GOP victories in the House and Senate.
In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier suggested Tuesday's special election showed that the "polls had a pro-GOP bias, again" and that the Republican Party has "yet to find a position on abortion rights that will save them."
Bonier said that the results showed that immigration "backfired" for the GOP, especially in the "context of their legislative failure," and that Suozzi was able to get the backing of a significant number of Independent and Republican voters.
Simon Rosenberg, another Democratic political strategist, posted: "Since Dobbs, in every kind of election, all over the country, in 2022, 2023 and now 2024, Democrats keep overperforming and winning, Republicans keep struggling.
"It is the most important electoral data out there, far more than polling right now."
Prior to the results being declared, political expert Mona Kleinberg told Newsweek the special election shows that Democrats and Republicans would continue to campaign on abortion and immigration heading into November.
"We know that abortion and immigration are winning issues. Voters care about them," she said. "This means that Democrats will likely continue to be on the defensive when it comes to immigration and on the offensive when it comes to abortion. Of course, the reverse is true for Republicans."
However, conservative political strategist Garrett Ventry said that not much can be taken from Tuesday's results.
"A special election for a House seat doesn't mean anything for predicting the November election," Ventry posted. "The final Siena Poll had Suozzi winning by 4, and Trump winning by 5."
In a statement, Biden's campaign team linked Pilip's election defeat to Trump and his "extreme agenda" even though she only began to side with the former president in recent days.
"Donald Trump lost again tonight. When Republicans run on Trump's extreme agenda—even in a Republican-held seat—voters reject them," Biden's campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said.
"As we saw in 2020, 2022, 2023, and now tonight, when it comes down to the choice between Donald Trump's chaos and division and President Biden, who wakes up every day working to get things done and make Americans' lives better, voters are consistently choosing the leadership of President Biden and Democrats."
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more