Hochul goes from enemy to frenemy for Tom Suozzi

ALBANY, N.Y. — Democrat Tom Suozzi’s campaign for a bellwether special election next week is getting a boost from his former foe: Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The governor has emerged as a vocal supporter in the final days of Suozzi’s bid to retake the House seat he vacated two years ago — when he ran an ill-fated primary challenge against her.

But with the migrant surge and immigration seen as pivotal issues in the race, Hochul is excoriating Republicans and GOP-backed House candidate Mazi Pilip for the implosion of the border security bill this week ahead of Tuesday’s special House election

And, in turn, she’s making the case for Suozzi.

Hochul is among a group of blue state governors pressing for a new immigration law. She called the Republican decision to walk away from the Senate-negotiated package this week “a suicide pact” for battleground GOP lawmakers.

The political repercussions of the failed bill will play out in the special election next week, Hochul predicted in a CNN interview Thursday morning.

“The Republicans are going to wear this,” she said. “It starts on Tuesday right here in the state of New York. All we have to do is realize Tom Suozzi’s opponent says she would not support the Senate deal.”

Pilip’s campaign has called the Senate proposal a “nonstarter” and faulted it for not doing enough to stem the flow of illegal entries into the country.

“I do not support what amounts to the legalization of the invasion of our country,” she said in a statement.

Hochul has hyped up Suozzi’s candidacy and blasted Pilip after GOP lawmakers rejected the Senate-negotiated border security package — a proposal she pinned as necessary to help address the flow of as many as 3,000 migrants a week into New York.

The strong talk from Hochul in support of Suozzi, who needed her blessing to clear the field for his latest run, is another sign of the increased anxiety among Democrats that the race for the suburban swing district is becoming an increasingly tight contest.

Party leaders had initially banked on voters returning Suozzi to his old House seat on the strength of his name recognition and residual voter anger over Republican former Rep. George Santos’ scandal-scarred time in office.

Instead, the campaign is increasingly seen by both Republicans and Democrats as a referendum on immigration and how President Joe Biden has handled the issue.

At the moment, the race appears to be razor close.

A Siena College/Newsday poll released Thursday morning found Suozzi drawing 48 percent to Pilip’s 44 percent, a result within the 4.2 percentage point margin of error. The poll also found 49 percent of voters expected Pilip would do a better job of addressing the influx of migrants into the U.S. compared to 40 percent for Suozzi.

On Wednesday, Hochul sidestepped a question over whether Biden should be doing more to help Suozzi in the special election in the Queens and Long Island district.

Instead, she zeroed in on Pilip and the failed immigration bill, and she has been uncharacteristically aggressive as a surrogate for Democrats during a media blitz this week.

“This should be a factor in that race,” she said. “Everyone should be asking where Mazi Pilip is on this.”

Hochul went further in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and questioned the credentials of Pilip, an Ethiopian-born Jewish refugee who served in the Israeli Defense Force and is now a Nassau County legislator.

“We don’t even know a thing about her. This is like George Santos all over again,” Hochul said. “What do we really know about her? I don’t think the voters of that district are going to be fooled again.”

Republicans have rolled their eyes at Hochul’s attempt to help her former nemesis.

“The Democrats pretend they’re supporters of women until it’s someone who doesn’t share their viewpoint,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Republican,said in an interview. “I think it is unfortunate that Kathy Hochul would launch these personal attacks. She’s the gaslighting governor;everything that comes out of her mouth most of the time is not true.”

The GOP has also tried to make Hochul a liability for Suozzi and link him to how Democrats are handling the migrant crisis in New York.

Last month, the NRCC pointed to Hochul’s $233 billion budget proposal that boosted funding for New York City to help pay for emergency shelters while also advancing a proposal to change how education is funded in the state, resulting in cuts for more than 300 school districts. The budget, Republicans charged, put migrants ahead of school kids.

Hochul has dismissed the criticism, pointing to the money coming from disparate pots of funds in the budget and called it typical Republican attacks in an election season.

But the episode highlighted the uneasy alliance between the two moderate Democrats.

Suozzi launched a primary campaign against Hochul in 2022 when she was running for the first time after being elevated to the office following the resignation of Andrew Cuomo.

Suozzi rankled Hochul during that campaign after he called her “an interim governor.” He criticized her shifting stances on gun laws and prior opposition to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants when she was a local official in Erie County.

They set their differences aside late last year, however, soon after Santos’ expulsion from the House, a truce brokered as Democrats push this year to regain power in the closely divided House with an estimated half-dozen swing districts in New York at stake.

Jason Elan, a former aide to both Hochul and Suozzi, said the governor’s efforts on behalf of her erstwhile primary opponent are sincere. But Democrats should be even more aggressive in turning the tables on the GOP over the migrant policy, he added

“I think the Democrats should really attack her and go on the offense on immigration, not just sit back and explain themselves on the merits of the bill,” he said he said of Pilip.

Hochul herself knows what it’s like to win in a special election while leveraging a national issue. She flipped a Republican-held seat in a conservative area of western New York in 2011, running in opposition to GOP-backed plans for Medicare.

Hochul is also fighting the perception, pushed in part by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that New York Democrats were the main factor in the party losing control of the House.

The Pelosi criticism stung the governor, a New York Democratic consultant said.

“There was nothing that hit her harder,” the consultant, who requested anonymity to relay private discussions, said. “It’s less about having a favor for Suozzi as much as it’s this national conversation.”

But Suozzi has shrugged off the potential national implications of next Tuesday’s outcome.

“This race is between Suozzi and Mazi,” he said during a virtual news conference this week.

Democrats also doubt whether Hochul can have much of an impact in a House race in the New York City suburbs, an area where she has struggled to build support among voters.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Austin Shafran, a Democratic consultant, said of Hochul’s support for Suozzi. “But in close, off-cycle elections typically turnout is based less on who is saying what on CNN and who is connecting with voters in person at their front doors.”