The Santos District: NYC’s Major Swing District

New York’s third congressional district is one of the few in New York City that consistently switches between the two political parties. The district’s house representative has flipped parties in the last decade, a relative rarity in these polarizing times, and it is also one of the few districts in the entire nation that has recently had a vacant house seat. It is an important district in determining which of the currently very evenly matched parties controls the US House of Representatives and therefore the capacity to impact nationwide policy.

The reason for these odd election results is that it’s a very unique district. It’s suburban but its communities are deeply embedded in one of the world’s most important cities: New York City. It’s both situated right in the heartland of the Democratic Party and exceedingly wealthy, making its residents highly dislike Democratic tax policy. This means the district presents an interesting opportunity for both parties to take control, as swinging by just a small number of votes could flip control over the entire nation’s policymaking. This intriguing political situation also tends to push politicians to become more centrist in this district, since they need votes from people who share beliefs with both political parties.

District 3 is also split upon the borders of two New York counties—Queens and Nassau. The two are largely different—for example, you can turn right on red in Nassau but not in Queens, and you receive electricity from PSG in Nassau and ConEdison in Queens—but the communities in both counties are largely of the same cloth. Both communities have large pockets of first and second-generation Asian immigrants while also hosting individuals who have resided in the U.S. for far longer and are mostly white. Because of this, the county border divide does not influence the flip-flop nature of this congressional seat. Most notably, the Queens portion of District 3 largely matches the 19th City Congress district, represented by Republican Vickie Paladino, who—though unpopular with the rest of the city—keeps herself involved in the local community and represents the slim majority that have voted for her, time and time again, in a City Council where she stands as a loud and unpopular speck of red in a sea of blue. 

The most famous of these party flips was when George Santos defeated the Democratic candidate Robert Zimmerman in order to flip the seat to the Republican Party. He did this by playing the role of an extremely qualified, socially liberal, generally moderate, gay Republican. He swore to crack down on crime, which appealed to the districtwide—and to some extent citywide—perception that violent crime had spiked in recent years and that the streets had become far less safe. Santos seemed like the perfect candidate at the perfect time to successfully take down Zimmerman. 

             Of course, none of these characteristics are what would make Santos a household name across the entire country. Rather, his claim to fame was that he, in fact, lied about almost every single one of his characteristics. He campaigned on, and had a history of, scamming a wide variety of people. He lied about where he went to college, how Jewish his heritage was, and it eventually came out that he had scammed a veteran’s dying dog out of $3,000 of GoFundMe money. Santos’s moral character wasn’t just in question—it was clearly monstrous, and he had to go. Therefore, on December 2, 2023, Santos was expelled from Congress in a rare moment of bipartisanship amidst highly divided times.

The result was unprecedented—never in the history of Congress had a member been removed from office, and never would it have been expected in a time lacking bipartisanship like now. But Santos inspired a special non-political bond between Democrats and Republicans: the idea that truth is critical to the government. Santos broke this by lying to his people in pursuit of power—something that even his fellow Republicans could not defend him for. 

Once he was removed from office, Democrats saw an opportunity to rip the New York District 3 seat from the party that had essentially just betrayed its constituents. The Democratic Party’s main struggle in this special election was immigration, while the main struggles of the Republican Party were abortion rights and the lack of moral character that their last representative displayed. Ultimately, the fairly moderate, popular Democrat Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pillip and flipped the seat yet again, making the Republican majority in the House ever more razor thin. But those who voted in the shock mid-year election had kept up with the news, and the residents of Nassau and Queens alike were afraid to elect another Republican candidate. Worse still for the Republicans, Pillip was a relative nobody compared to Suozzi, who had held this seat in the past and was well-known in the district as a fiscally moderate Democrat.

Though Suozzi locked down the seat in February, the regular election cycle means it is once again up for grabs this election season. It will likely play an important role again in determining which political party has control over the house. Right now, the polls show Suozzi ahead by a significant margin, likely due to the fact that he’s an extremely well funded, relatively popular, incumbent whose political opinions seem to be mostly in line with the rest of the district. After the whole Santos scandal, District 3 has become much more hostile to Republicans—some of the constituents’ feelings of betrayal have been well documented. Eventually, a Republican may manage to win control of the district again, but right now it seems to be fairly safely in Democrat hands.