Last week, Tom Suozzi won a special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, filling the seat vacated by serial fraudster George Santos and reclaiming the seat previously held by Suozzi. It’s the latest in a series of victories for Democrats in special elections, victories that appear to contradict polls showing Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in the presidential race.
As Nate Cohn, the Times’ chief polling analyst, is at pains to point out, there’s not necessarily a contradiction here. The people voting in the special election may not be representative of the people voting in November and may be particularly motivated by issues that have recently received attention favorable to Democrats, particularly abortion. Additionally, Long Island, where NY-03 is located, is an unusual location. I can personally confirm this, having mostly grown up there.
But while I don’t claim to be an expert in poll analysis, I suspect, like others, that this election may be more important than the pure number crunching suggests. This may be an early sign that the Republican strategy of winning through obstruction is not working.
The starting point here is that our political system may be unique among democracies in its vulnerability to sabotage by ruthless opposition parties. That’s because voters often judge presidents based on factors over which they have little control.
In some cases, this lack of control reflects the limits of American power in general. For example, while gasoline prices are of great political importance, they primarily reflect oil prices, which are set in global markets where U.S. policy has limited influence.
In addition to this, when voters think of our government, they usually think of the executive branch, sometimes ignoring the fact that there are many things the president cannot do without approval from Congress. Additionally, our country has a bicameral system, meaning that a president can be blocked from acting even if his opponent controls only one chamber, a problem exacerbated by the unique system of the Senate filibuster. This issue often allows political parties to block action, even within parliament. a few.
However, voters often do not pay attention to this. When things are going well, they praise the president. When they feel they are not doing well, they blame him.
For the record, this disconnect between public perception and the reality of presidential power has sometimes worked to the advantage of both parties. Ronald Reagan won in his 1984 by a landslide. This was largely due to a boom orchestrated by the independent Federal Reserve System, not to any actions of Reagan himself. Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory was due to a weak labor market (“blame the economy, idiot”), but it wasn’t actually George H.W. Bush’s fault.
Still, while persistently high unemployment helped Democrats in 1992, they did not deliberately use their control of the House and Senate to make matters worse.
But it was a different country.
As the economy improves and persuasive voters begin to recognize that improvement, the focus of the 2024 campaign shifts to immigration, as far as policy focus goes, with Republicans pushing for tougher restrictions and border restrictions. They are calling for a significant reinforcement of security. And importantly, Democrats have been negotiating a bipartisan bill that would give Republicans most of what they wanted.
However, Republicans followed President Trump’s instructions and repealed their own bill. They didn’t even try to hide their sarcasm. They would rather show the American people a border in crisis than help solve the problem. This is because they believe it is politically beneficial.
Will this cynicism pay off? Initial polling suggests, depressingly, that this is the case. As The New Republic’s Greg Sargent pointed out, a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that Biden supported the deal, even though Trump deliberately (and very publicly) abandoned it. , found that more Americans blame Biden for failing to pass immigration legislation than blame Trump.
However, this poll reflects voters who are largely not following legislative policy. In general, as I have already suggested, most voters often pay far less attention to politics than those of us in the chattering class.
The key question is whether the Republican Party’s cynical obstructionism on immigration will continue to work as voters focus on the prospect of elections in the near future. Democrats support border security measures, while Republicans make a strong point of blocking them. .
Now, let’s go back to NY-03. Republican candidate Maji Pilip ran as a hawk on immigration. Mr. Suozzi ran in part on the platform of abortion rights, but he also took tough positions (basically the same positions currently taken by Mr. Biden) on the border issue while attacking Republican obstructionism. It also aimed to neutralize it.
Despite some reports predicting a tough battle, Mr. Suozzi achieved a comfortable victory, surpassing the difference in pre-election polls.
Again, just as you shouldn’t read too much into one month’s economic data, you shouldn’t read too much into one special election. But Mr. Suozzi may have provided a template for how to overcome Republican obstructionism.