- Former Rep. Tom Suozzi is projected to have won recently expelled Congressman George Santos’ seat.
- Suozzi’s victory came on a day in which much of the district was blanketed with snow.
- The results illustrate that the GOP’s reliance on Election Day voting continues to harm the party.
House Republicans’ main super PAC paid for private snow plows on Tuesday to ensure their voters could make it to the polls to cast their ballot in a critical New York special election.
Democrats, who massively outspent the GOP overall, declined to finance any similar intervention. Taken by itself, the episode, reported by Politico, shows the extent Republicans went to to try to hang on to recently expelled Rep. George Santos’ former seat.
Viewed in the light of a string of failures, however, it clearly illustrates that the GOP is trying to win elections with an outdated strategy.
“Let me tell you something about election mechanics that is bothering me, as a Republican. Voting early, voting by mail, ballot harvesting, getting your votes in — it looks to me like the Democrats crushed in early voting in Nassau where the Republicans had to do well — and you’re always just one snowstorm away from some kind of a turnout problem,” Republican strategist Scott Jennings said on CNN’s election night coverage. “The Democrats are gonna win this … and a big part of it is the Republican Party remains resistant to getting votes in the bank.”
Former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi is projected to have easily won Santos’ old seat. The extent to which turnout suffered due to winter storms in the area remains to be seen, but the district encompassing parts of Queens and Long Island was blanketed with snow.
It’s not hard to find the culprit of the GOP’s turn away from early voting
In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, then-President Donald Trump began a one-way jeremiad against early and absentee voting that continues to this day. He did so at the time even when it was apparent that Americans would cast historic levels of absentee ballots due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Election administrators say that Trump’s favored way of running elections, a single day of hand-counted paper ballots, would be a logistical nightmare.
The trend continued after Trump left power. According to the US Census Bureau, 47.1% of voters cast their ballots early in the 2022 midterms, just shy of the 49.8% of voters who voted on Election Day.
Some Republicans have tried to reverse the trend. After the disappointing midterms, The Republican National Committee announced an effort to get Americans to “bank your vote” ahead of this November. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin tried a similar attempt ahead of Virginia’s 2023 legislative elections, but it wasn’t enough to secure a majority in either house.
Suozzi’s challenger, Mazi Pilip, a Nassau County legislator, even cast her ballot early. She just happens to be a registered Democrat.
