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

One annoying thing about this district is that it's made up of only two counties, Queens and Nassau, and they're both gigantic, so there's not a lot of granularity in the results. (For a normal statewide election, we'd be able to tell you something about how the election overall is trending from results in just a few counties.) For instance, the Associated Press is starting to report some votes from Nassau County, but it's a big and diverse county! Without knowing exactly where in the county those votes are coming from, it's impossible to know if they're good for Suozzi or Pilip.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

The Associated Press has already projected a winner in the special election in Pennsylvania’s 140th House District: Democrat Jim Prokopiak. With 3,700 absentee ballots counted, he leads 85 percent to 14 percent, a margin that will surely shrink, but not by enough for Prokopiak to lose.

With the win, Democrats will hold onto their control of the Pennsylvania state House, which was 101-100 going into tonight.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

We have our first results out of the 3rd District from Queens County, where around 16,000 votes have reported. Suozzi leads 63 percent to 37 percent among those. However, these first results are also the most likely to be Democratic-leaning because they're mostly Queens's early and mail votes, and we know that the partisan split in vote method is such that Democrats are more likely to use those avenues to vote than Republicans, who tend to prefer voting on Election Day.

Those votes make up 54 percent of the total expected vote in Queens, but just 9 percent of the Third District's overall expected vote. The Queens portion will only make up a fraction of votes tonight: In 2022, it cast 18 percent of all votes in the district, compared with 82 percent from Nassau County. But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter — Queens is more Democratic-leaning, meaning that a notable difference in turnout compared with the Nassau part of the district could impact the final outcome.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538

Since his expulsion from the House in December, Santos has been busy defending himself against federal charges. Last year, Santos was charged with 23 felonies in an election-fraud scheme in federal court. And though he previously pleaded not guilty on each count and rejected the possibility of a plea deal, prosecutors announced in December that the parties were negotiating to reach a deal for Santos to plead guilty and avoid going to trial. Santos's case is not due in court again until August, ahead of a September trial date, potentially giving his legal team and prosecutors time to reach a resolution.

As for what the charges are about, Santos is accused of a battery of fraud-related crimes, including using a fake super PAC for political donations, which he then allegedly spent on everything from his rent to botox. He was first indicted in May, but was charged with additional counts in October. Fellow Republican Rep. Max Miller from Ohio even revealed that he and his mother had been victims of Santos's alleged scheme when their credit cards were charged without their knowledge, and Miller said he suspected other House colleagues had had the same experience. Perhaps siphoning money from colleagues was not a good way to make friends: As Geoffrey mentioned earlier, Santos became only the sixth member of the House to ever be expelled, and the first in the modern era to be expelled prior to being convicted of any crimes.

Of course, appearing in court is not all that Santos is doing these days. He's also earning big bucks making appearances on Cameo and otherwise taking advantage of his 15 minutes of fame. With the election to replace him underway, and his court case pressing on toward a resolution, maybe that time is almost up.

—Monica Potts, 538