New York 3rd District special election: Suozzi projected to defeat Pilip

New York’s 3rd Congressional District is an urban-suburban and well-educated district mostly situated in northern Nassau County east of New York City, although a small part crosses into northeastern Queens. Overall, 54 percent of the seat’s population that’s 25 years or older has at least a four-year college degree, compared with 36 percent nationally, ranking it among the top 10 percent of congressional districts by educational attainment. The district’s overall population is 55 percent non-Hispanic white, roughly similar to the nation as a whole, but it has a much larger share of residents with Asian backgrounds (25 percent versus about 6 percent nationally). The district is also among the wealthiest in the country by median household income (about $130,000 versus the national median of just under $75,000).

Politically, the highly-educated and affluent district is highly competitive with arguably a slight Democratic lean. Under the current district lines, first used in 2022, the seat would have backed the Democratic nominees for president by 5 and 8 percentage points in 2016 and 2020, respectively, which put the seat just a bit to the left of the nation as a whole. As of November, a plurality of voters in the district were registered Democrats (39 percent), with near-equal shares of registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters (about 28 percent each; the remainder identified with minor parties).

However, the 2022 midterms showed how the seat can very much be in play for the GOP. That year, Santos won in part because of “differential turnout,” whereby one party’s voters turn out at a much higher rate than the other’s. Based on an analysis by the Albany Times-Union, 64 percent of the district’s registered Republicans cast ballots compared with just 51 percent of Democrats. Like other Long Island Republicans, Santos received a boost from GOP gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin, who at the time represented the eastern part of the island in Congress. Zeldin gave Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul a strong challenge, losing by just 6 points statewide, and he carried the 3rd District by 12 points — better than Santos’s 7.5-point victory margin.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

Nassau County legislator Mazi Pilip has had a unique path to becoming the Republican nominee in this race. Pilip was born to Orthodox Jewish parents in a rural village in Ethiopia that, according to her campaign website, “didn’t even have running water.” When she was 12, in 1991, Pilip and her family immigrated to Israel as part of Project Solomon, a covert Israeli military operation where thousands of Ethiopian Jews were airlifted out of the country in the span of 36 hours. Pilip later served in the Israel Defense Forces before immigrating to the U.S.

A mother of seven, Pilip is a relative newcomer to politics. She was elected in 2021 as part of a red wave that resulted in a GOP supermajority in the county legislature … despite being a registered Democrat, according to reporting from Politico. In that election, Pilip defeated incumbent Democratic legislator Ellen Birnbaum, who had represented the 10th District since 2015. Prior to her political career, Pilip worked in the non-profit sector, with a specific focus on pro-Israel causes, something she has continued to champion as a legislator, most recently speaking out in October in support of Israel in its war against Hamas.

Pilip stuck to party lines during a fairly quiet tenure on the County Legislature. Among her accomplishments are securing grants for the local police department to buy speed radar signs, negotiating a land transfer from the county to expand park space, and funding the restoration of a village hall.

When it comes to the top election issues for voters, Pilip has taken a fairly moderate tack, saying she is against a national abortion ban and would not support Trump as the Republican nominee if he is convicted of a crime — a break from many of her GOP colleagues who have brushed off Trump’s legal woes. “Nobody is above the law,” Pilip told local news station PIX11. “If [Trump is] convicted of a crime, he cannot represent us. But unless we see that … I will support him. He was a great candidate, a great president. He did great things for America.”

She has, however, taken a firm stance on immigration, stating that she wants to end sanctuary city policies and invest in ICE. “We have to secure our border. That’s our top priority,” she said at a press conference last month outside a migrant tent city in Queens. She also aligned with House conservatives and Trump in opposing the bipartisan border security deal that stalled in the Senate last week, calling it “the legalization of the invasion of our country.”

While she lacks the wider notoriety and political experience of her Democratic opponent, Pilip is well known in the region and is active outside of her political duties, including serving as vice president of her synagogue.

—Kaleigh Rogers, 538

On Monday’s episode of the 538 Politics podcast, Brittany Shepherd and Leah Askarinam joined me to preview tonight’s special election. Brittany is herself from the district and has been reporting on the ground there, and Leah has been digging into the numbers to get a sense of the partisan lean of the district. We talked about both what makes the area unique and what could make it a good bellwether for how debates over immigration, the economy, crime and the war in Gaza could play out in the coming months. We also touched on the political conversation about Biden’s age and debates in Congress over the border and foreign aid. If you are still cleaning up post-dinner while you get ready for results to come in, give the podcast a listen!

—Galen Druke, 538

There are not many polls of today's NY-03 special, but those we do have suggest the race is close. Since mid-December, when the Democratic and Republican parties selected their nominees, public pollsters have released four surveys of the race. On average, they show Suozzi with a lead of 3 percentage points over Pilip, but that's within each surveys' margins of sampling error. And given there are only four polls, their average also comes with hefty uncertainty.

It would be wise not to take these polls as precise predictions from the Oracle of Delphi. For one, three of these polls show no candidate winning more than 50 percent of the vote — often a harbinger of uncertainty for a contest (and there’s no third-party challenger to suck up the remaining votes, so they’ll have to go to one candidate or the other). But for another, polls of House elections are typically less accurate. In doing the research for our new pollster ratings, I found that House general election polls are the second-least accurate category of poll, after surveys of presidential primaries.

As for narratives, the Siena College/Newsday poll conducted earlier this month shows a familiar lay of the land. Voters said Pilip would do a better job on immigration and lowering taxes, while Suozi ranked higher on protecting democracy and abortion rights. When respondents were asked who they'd vote for if the presidential election were held today, they picked Donald Trump by a 5-point margin (47 percent to Joe Biden's 42). That would be in line with the district’s recent swingy vote history; NY-03 has a 538 partisan lean of D+4 points and Biden would have carried the district by 8.2 points in 2020, while Santos won it by 7 points in the 2022 midterms.

—G. Elliott Morris, 538