Democrats' Chances of Flipping George Santos' Former House Seat: Polls

The race to replace expelled Representative George Santos remains neck-and-neck between Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republican Mazi Pilip, but polls show one has a slight advantage over the other.

Suozzi, who held the seat before Santos, has a four-point lead over Pilip in a new Siena College poll released Thursday. Among likely special election voters, 48 percent said they would vote for Suozzi, compared to 44 percent who picked Pilip. Seven percent of voters were undecided.

An Emerson College poll conducted last month also showed Suozzi in the lead, although by a smaller margin of three percentage points over Pilip, 45 percent to 42 percent.

Voters in New York's 3rd Congressional District will select Santos' replacement in the February 13 election. Early voting began last weekend. The district is the wealthiest district in the state and one of only two in New York City that is represented by a Republican.

Santos became the first Republican to ever be expelled from Congress in December after an investigation by the House Ethics Committee accused him of campaign fraud similar to the ones he had already been criminally charged with by the Justice Department. Santos succeeded Suozzi after the Democrat retired from Congress in 2022 to run for the governor of New York. Suozzi lost to then-incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul during the Democratic primaries.

Although Joe Biden won New York's 3rd District by 9 points in 2020, Republicans have made steady gains in the last three and a half years, including the election of Santos in 2022. Thursday's Siena College poll showed that even though Suozzi is more popular than his Republican opponent, voters in the district preferred former President Donald Trump over Biden.

In a hypothetical matchup between Trump and Biden, 47 percent of likely voters in the district said they'd back the former president and 42 percent said they would vote for the current president. However, the two men are both unpopular, with Trump seeing a 40 percent approval rating and Biden seeing 39 percent.

While voters seemed to favor Suozzi over Pilip, they also said Pilip would do a better job on the migrant crisis in New York, which has emerged as a major voting issue ahead of next week's special election. Nearly half of the voters said Pilip would do a better job at addressing the influx of asylum seekers, compared to 40 percent who said Suozzi would be better on the issue.

Ahead of the election, New Yorkers have been inundated with ads about the border crisis. Republicans have dubbed the Democrat "Sanctuary Suozzi" and attacked his immigration record during his three terms in the House of Representatives, while Suoozi has promised "to work across the aisle to do what our leaders haven't: secure our border."

"While both candidates have nearly breakeven favorability ratings, Suozzi is seen by voters as likely to do a better job on protecting democracy, addressing the issue of abortion, determining aid to Ukraine and making Congress work more effectively while Pilip is viewed as better on addressing the influx of migrants and by a slim margin on establishing American policy towards the Israel-Hamas war," Don Levy, Siena College Research Institute's Director, said in a press release.

The survey was conducted between February 3 and 6 among 694 likely voters in the district. It has a margin of error of +/-4.2 points.