Tom Suozzi, a former Democratic congressman, won a closely watched special House election in New York on Tuesday, narrowing the Republican majority in Washington and offering his party a potential playbook to run in key suburban swing areas in November.
His victory in the Queens and Long Island district avenged a year of humiliation unleashed by the seat’s former occupant, George Santos, and stanched a trend that had seen Republicans capture nearly every major election on Long Island since 2021.
Mr. Suozzi, 61, fended off the Republican nominee, Mazi Pilip, in a race that became an expensive preview of many of the fights expected to dominate November’s general election, especially over the influx of migrants at the border and in New York City.
Mr. Suozzi’s comeback will have an immediate impact in Washington. After he is seated, Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose only two votes on any partisan bill, an unwieldy margin that could limit Republicans’ election-year legislative agenda.
Even if Johnson gets bypassed and literally any major legislation gets passed, all Republicans will take credit for it. They take credit for bills they voted against all the time.
Oh, they are more than welcome to take credit for Ukraine funding. No worries there. I’m sure their voters will looooove that. Israel, yep, they can have that one too. Taiwan, sure, why not? Aid for the Gazans? Yep, sure. Totally fine.
I see no issues here. lol
Exhibit A: the difference between policy-mindedness and partisanship. 🥇
At least things will be getting passed!
The Mayorkas impeachment wouldn’t have happened. Funny how they scheduled that vote just in time.
Brilliant point. They can do stuff. They just don’t. Its like they only have the focus to do destructive things
This looks like an opening. Is there any “broken clock is right twice a day” legislation that the extreme MAGA fringe wants passed that mainstream GOP doesn’t that coincidentally aligns with democrat policy goals?
The GOP would actually have to pass legislation for there to be a chance for anything for them to talk about. They haven’t passed meaningful legislation in years that wasn’t bipartisan. They’ve shown that even with a majority they can’t get anything done themselves. They keep scapegoating their own Speakers because of it.
It pretty much shows that the GOP can’t even unite to do anything in current Congress. It is supposedly so much a shitshow that some long-time Congresspeople are considering retirement after their terms are up out of frustration.
If not legislation, then how about procedure votes?
They’ve shown that even with a majority they can’t get anything done themselves. They keep scapegoating their own Speakers because of it.
If I’m not mistaken the ouster of McCarthy from the Speakership was a bi-partisan effort with democrats and MAGA fringe GOP voting for it.
The impression I got of McCarthy’s ousting was that some democrats would have voted to keep him as speaker had he had the balls to ask them. But he didn’t, so the democrats did what they were expected to do and voted to oust the guy from the other party.
This is exactly what happened.
bi-partisan effort with democrats and MAGA fringe GOP voting for it.
Well it was 208 Democrats + 8 GOP. That’s not even 4% of the GOP in the House. I guess you could call that bipartisan if you want. Then there were a bunch of failed speaker nominations before Mike Johnson.
MAGA has nothing to do with passing legislation or running the country, so no.
MAGA congresspeople put Mike Johnson into the position he’s in.
Yes, this does strengthen my point
Not that I’m aware of. A lot of the MAGA stuff is just directly opposed to democrats.
MAGA policy is if the democrats vote yay, then vote nay.
So that is something like 13 out of the last 16 special elections that the GOP has lost.
Unfortunately, these by-elections tend to be happening in uncompetitive constituencies. This one was actually a marginal seat.
It’s good, of course, but compare it to the UK where the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats have been overturning huge majorities in previously safely Conservative seats and the US Democrats seem to be the runt of the litter.
Only because you aren’t thinking of the bigger picture.
With the new, fair maps in 4 states for the 2024 election, this actually is a big deal when you are talking about control of the House.
And as the article states, Democrats can pass bills with only 2 GOP defections now.
There is a theory that Democrats now have the majority of high propensity voters, such as high education voters. A decade ago it was the reverse, and Republicans would win most special elections and midterms.
