New York special election kicks off national fight for the House majority

If Democrats want to take back the House later this year, they’re going to have to start winning in places like New York’s 3rd District.

The Long Island-based seat is hosting a hotly contested special election on Tuesday, which is shaping up to be an early messaging and turnout test not just for Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republican Mazi Pilip but for both parties nationally ahead of November.

“There’s no question that whichever party wins this seat is going to get a boost going into the general election cycle,” said New York Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs, who also chairs the Nassau County party in the 3rd District, which Republican George Santos represented before he was expelled from Congress in December.

While strategists warn not to extrapolate too much from special elections with unpredictable turnout, the race sets the table for a hard-fought battle for the House over the rest of the year, with Democrats needing a net gain of five districts to flip the House. Like other House battlegrounds, the New York district is a Republican-held seat that Joe Biden carried in 2020 — by 8 points, per calculations from Daily Kos Elections.

And this district is in a state with multiple competitive House races, though it is not a presidential battleground.

Nearly two-thirds of the 23 House races that the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter rates as 2024 toss-ups are in states that are not considered presidential battlegrounds, including a number of competitive races in New York and California.

While that dynamic could make it tougher for these races to capture attention from donors and activists in a presidential election year, candidates in these House races could also have more room to run their own races and put their