Democrat Tom Suozzi won a special election in New York’s 3rd district defeating MAGA newcomer Mazi Pilip and taking back the congressional seat most recently held by Republican serial fabricator George Santos. Both parties worked to spin the results, an easier task for the victorious Democrats who portrayed the results as a referendum on a MAGA movement it hopes is in its last throes.
Republicans, too, saw a silver lining in Pilip’s showing in an anomalous election, which makes Suozzi the incumbent when the seat is again up for grabs in November.
Even House Speaker Mike Johnson said that in his opinion the result wasn’t something “Democrats should celebrate too much.”
Johnson cited Democrats outspending Republicans in the race to win a district Biden triumphed in, so not exactly a swing seat — Johnson asserts — even as he’s forced to acknowledge that the Democrat will now replace a Republican. That is, by definition, a swing, yet Johnson says it is “in no way a bellwether for what’s going to happen next year.”
Speaker Johnson lays out a number of reasons(excuses) as to why last night’s election isn’t bad news for Republicans: Biden won the district previously, Suozzi campaigned as a Republican, snowstorm… pic.twitter.com/gxneHS5H96
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 14, 2024
One aspect of the race, however, did signal the end of a certain sort of MAGA resistance strategy, staunching an ugly, anti-American, anti-Democratic strain of the movement. Unlike Donald Trump in 2020 or Kari Lake in 2020 and 2022, Pilip conceded she’d lost the special election and called her opponent to say so. “Yes, we lost,” Pilip said. (Trump became the only president in U.S. history not to concede defeat and, breaking with tradition, did not attend his successor’s inauguration.)
Mazi Pilip: “Yes, we lost,” saying she called Tom Suozzi to concede in #NY3.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 14, 2024
“How refreshing to see a Republican concede gracefully,” wrote one commenter on Pilip’s move. Expressing disappointment at how anti-Democratic intransigence of not conceding defeat has gained political prominence, another commenter writes: “I sincerely dislike how it’s now applaudable when a loser actually concedes after they lose.” Another writes, alluding to a common stratagem among recent losers: “What? No lawsuits?”
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