New York | President Joe Biden's Democratic Party won a House seat in Washington on Tuesday night, replacing a Republican who was expelled from Congress for serial lies in a New York district.
• Also read: By-election in New York to succeed serial liar George Santos
With this victory of the centrist Democrat Tom Suozzi against the Republican Mazi Pilip, according to CNN and NBC television projections, the Democrats are further losing the very narrow majority of Donald Trump's Republican Party in the House of Representatives: so far 219 Republican seats against 212 Democrats and four vacant seats, nine months before the presidential and legislative elections to partially renew the Senate and the House of Representatives.
In this New York constituency, which includes part of Queens and Nassau County on the Long Island peninsula, Tom Suozzi, who was a representative there from 2016 to 2022, will replace Republican George Santos until the next election in November.
“Thank God!” the winner shouted from his suburban campaign stronghold, while pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting “genocide” briefly occupied the podium.
“Crooked strokes”
The 61-year-old elected official, a veteran politician, was pleased to have “won” despite a campaign of “sneaky tricks” and “lies,” particularly on the migration crisis that has destabilized New York for nearly two years.
Eric Adams, the strong-willed Democratic mayor of the megacity of 8.5 million people — which has welcomed more than 165,000 migrants and asylum seekers from Latin America and West Africa since April 2022 — hailed “good news for New York.”
Ms Pilip said she conceded her victory by calling her competitor to congratulate him.
Mr. Suozzi may have benefited from the low turnout this Tuesday, due to a snowstorm that paralyzed the city and its surroundings, and after many voters, especially Democrats, had already voted in recent days.
Replicating the campaign themes of the upcoming presidential election between MM. Trump and Biden, Ms. Pilip and Mr. Suozzi have argued about immigration and abortion.
Mazi Pilip has a unique background: she is an Orthodox Jew and mother of seven children. She was born in Ethiopia in 1978 or 1979 before immigrating to Israel in 1991, serving in the Jewish State's armed forces, and then immigrating to the United States to acquire her military citizenship.
If the election had national resonance, it also came after the historic expulsion of that New York district's outgoing Republican elected official, George Santos, from the House of Representatives.
The 30-year-old became famous for his repeated lies and was charged with financial crimes before being impeached by Congress on December 1. About 100 Republicans and more than 200 Democrats voted for his removal, a sanction that has only been imposed five times in the history of Congress.
According to revelations in the New York Times, George Santos was forced to admit that he lied about entire parts of his life in order to whitewash his resume. In fact, he had never worked for the American banks Goldman Sachs or Citigroup and had never graduated from New York University (NYU).
He was also accused of defrauding his donors as well as money laundering and fraud, charges to which he pleaded not guilty.