The duel to replace Republican George Santos in the House returns the New York seat to the Democrats

On Tuesday night, Democrats were hoping for a decisive victory in the special elections held in New York's 3rd electoral district, which Republican George Santos represented until he was expelled from Congress in December after being charged with 23 charges, including fraud, falsehood and identity theft.

In other circumstances, a partial vote to replace an elected member who has lost his job - even the disgraced Santos, with his sonorous trail of hoaxes and fabrications - would not have aroused more interest than completing the counting process, but in an election year like This, and with a very tense balance of forces in Congress (the Republicans lead the Democrats by only seven seats in the House of Representatives), the race has been lived with expectation, with live media monitoring of the count.

Not only the score in the House of Representatives depended on the result, but also the lessons that could be derived for the November presidential campaign.

With 52% of the votes counted, and according to the Associated Press agency, Democrat Tom Suozzi has prevailed over his rival, Republican Mazi Pilip, with almost 59% of support, compared to 41%.

The latter figure is not insignificant for someone with little political experience like Pilip (she has only been a local representative in the county that was disputed, Nassau) compared to Suozzi's three terms as a congressman in Washington.

The moderate Democrat has thus recovered the seat he occupied before it was taken from him by Santos last November.

A copious snow storm, the most intense in almost two years, has reduced the turnout at the polls, to which both candidates arrived practically tied in voting intention.

The fight was so tough that both offered their voters paid transportation to the voting centers.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, the main super PAC (political action committee) of the House Republicans, even hired private snow plows to clear the entrances.

Not counting the snowplow bill, the group has spent $5 million on the race, indicating Washington Republicans' determination to retain that seat.

Early voting, until this Sunday, seemed to benefit Democrats.

The congressman-elect has positioned himself during the campaign as a moderate negotiator in this district, while Republican Mazi Pilip, a veteran of the Israeli Army born in Ethiopia and defender of the Trumpist theses of the theft of the 2020 elections, has tried to link his rival with President Joe Biden, who is going through low times.

A Democratic defeat would have set off alarm bells in a party already affected by the president's low approval numbers and with open fronts such as immigration, which is becoming the main issue of the November campaign.

A Republican victory would have consolidated the difference in the House of Representatives and ended the traditional blue hegemony, the color with which Democrats are identified, in New York.

It was in fact the four seats won by the Republicans in this state in the midterm elections that gave their party control of the House of Representatives.

Nassau County is joined in the constituency at stake by a part of Queens, where the mayor of New York, Democrat Eric Adams, has installed a macro-shelter for migrants recently arrived from the border.

Immigration pressure is an asset that the Republicans have played thoroughly in this race, just as at the national level: it was about blaming the chaos prevailing in New York - and in other Democratic cities such as Denver or Chicago - on President Biden , and we believe that the presence of thousands of immigrants on the streets of the Big Apple has

the crisis in the eyes of the common voter, although the concern has not been expressed at the polls.

This has also been helped by the repeated complaints of Democratic Mayor Adams, blaming the federal government for not contributing enough to the costs of welcoming migrants.

Recovering Santos' seat in the House of Representatives has been the first test of the election year for Democrats.

Overcome, it opens a potential path in November to also prevail in undecided suburban districts such as New York, when voting intention surveys show an advantage for the Republican candidate Donald Trump, who sweeps his party's primaries, as well as an undoubted prominence of doubtful voters.

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