After Santos: A special election with import for 2024 and beyond

Tuesday’s special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District matters to both parties for reasons that have nothing to do with George Santos. 

For one thing, whoever wins the seat previously held by the infamous ex-congressman will become a potentially decisive vote in the narrowly divided House of Representatives. 

And with just nine months to go before November, the race offers an early test of campaign messaging in a swingy suburban district. President Joe Biden won by 8 points here in 2020, before Mr. Santos – the recently expelled Republican who misused campaign funds and lied about almost every aspect of his résumé – won by an almost equal margin in 2022. The Long Island district is rated by the Cook Political Report as a “toss-up,” with former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi holding a narrow lead in recent polls over Republican Nassau County Legislator Mazi Pilip. 

At the same time, strategists will be looking to see if Tuesday’s results confirm a pattern that has been emerging in recent special elections – and that could herald a major rethink in how both parties approach everything from the rules and restrictions around voting to the types of campaigns they run. 

Do Democrats now have a leg up in low-turnout elections?

Typically, non-presidential elections draw fewer voters to the polls than contests with presidential candidates on the ballot. And special elections, like the one being held Tuesday in NY-03, tend to feature very low participation, since they occur on randomly determined days (when voters aren’t used to voting) and only feature one race.

For years, Republicans tended to have an edge in those types of circumstances, while Democrats did better in high-turnout votes. But recently, that dynamic seems to have flipped.

In the 2022 midterms, Democrats held off a predicted “red wave” in the polls, instead growing their edge in the Senate and keeping House losses to the single digits. Then, in 2023’s off-year elections, a Democratic governor won reelection in Kentucky and Democrats retook Virginia’s lower chamber while retaining a majority in the state Senate. Over the past two years, abortion and marijuana referendums have prevailed in states like Kansas and Ohio.  

“If there is one data-geek debate of 2024, it’s the hypothesis that partisan engagement has reversed,” says David Wasserman, senior elections analyst at the Cook Political Report.

If so, it’s likely a downstream effect of a larger realignment that’s been happening between the two parties, as Democrats have been winning over more college-educated voters, who tend to be highly engaged, while Republicans have gained ground among nonwhite voters and those without a college degree, who often only turn out in presidential years.

Highly engaged voters, many of whom are particularly passionate about a single issue, such as abortion, “can exert disproportionate influence” in elections with lower participation, says Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster. That’s less true in a presidential year, when a larger pool of voters becomes energized and mobilized.

As such, a Democratic win on Tuesday – particularly a narrow one – won’t necessarily portend good news for the party in November.

“Democrats are in better shape [on Tuesday] because it is a special election than they would be if it was a regular election,” says Mr. Wasserman. “But the fact that Democrats did well in 2023 and special elections doesn’t change my thinking about the fall and how challenging it will be for Democrats. ... Biden and Democrats might hope for lower turnout rather than higher.”

Another special election in New York – held in August of 2022, after Democratic Rep. Antonio Delgado resigned to become lieutenant governor – signaled these new turnout dynamics. Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in the NY-19 District by fewer than 3,000 votes, despite polling that had consistently shown Mr. Molinaro ahead. Just three months later, when voters in the Catskills district returned to the polls to cast ballots in the bigger midterm elections, turnout more than doubled from August. Mr. Ryan, running in a more Democratic-friendly district due to redistricting, eked out a win by an even slimmer margin.

One factor that has long favored Republicans in low-turnout contests is strong support from older people, who are among the most committed voters. That’s still an advantage, say GOP strategists. But the shift of highly educated voters, including educated senior citizens, to Democrats is a strong counterweight.  

“Turnout is a function of age, but also education. You’ve had education be a big demographic driver for Democrats in the Trump era and counter a Republican advantage among older voters,” says Mr. Ruffini.

Despite having a greater share of highly educated voters than the national and state averages, some experts say New York’s 3rd District could prove an exception to the recent special-election trend. This area was the inspiration for the famous Ronald Reagan quote, “When a Republican dies and goes to heaven, it looks a lot like Nassau County,” and it has had some success thwarting Democratic suburban gains. 

“Between manpower and messaging, the Nassau Republican Party has had an uncanny ability to overcome an electorate that’s changed dramatically in a generation,” says Lawrence Levy, dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University. “I’ve been polling on politics for 50 years, and this race is as interesting as it gets.”

In recent weeks, much of the campaign has turned on immigration. Ms. Pilip has been hammering on the topic, in an effort to drive more GOP voters to the polls, with GOP-funded TV ads accusing Mr. Suozzi of supporting “sanctuary cities,” and featuring a viral video clip of migrants in New York attacking a police officer.

Mr. Suozzi has tried to blunt these attacks by telling voters that he agrees the border is “chaotic” and Democrats need to do a better job of addressing it. He may have been helped by events in Washington last week, as Republicans in Congress tanked a bipartisan border deal under pressure from former President Donald Trump.

Nationally, immigration has become a top concern among voters, and will likely be a defining issue in this year’s presidential election. As such, experts say other campaigns may look to NY-03 as a test case of campaign messaging.

“The border issue is going to be around the rest of the year, and if Republicans are going to win in a swing district, this is a good chance to prove its potency,” says Jay Townsend, a New York political consultant who advises candidates from both parties. “If Pilip loses, they will have to adjust their playbook, because they have bet the whole kitchen sink on the border issue in this race.”