What George Santos & Lauren Boebert Have in Common
MAGA weirdos replaced by Democrats who reach across the aisle for voters - and colleagues
The radicalized House GOP impeached a Biden cabinet member by a single vote last night, 214 to 213. Hours later, Democrats picked up another vote against extremism with the special election victory in New York’s 3rd congressional district.
Democrats won back the seat held by George Santos by using a similar playbook to how a Democrat chased Lauren Boebert out of her seat just weeks ago: win the middle.
And, as we told the New York Times after the midterms, Santos and Lauren Boebert never should have been in Congress in the first place. Democrats could have won those seats in 2022, avoiding the chaos of impeachments - and the failure to fund those defending democracy around the globe.
Losing the majority in 2022 was not inevitable. It was the result of Democrats ‘conceding democracy’ by not even fielding credible challenges to MAGA incumbents who could be defeating by candidates who reached across the aisle to bring in who Pete Buttigieg called “future former Republicans”.
Republicans went on offense in many similar districts. On Long Island, George Santos won a seat that Joe Biden won by 8 points in 2020.
Democrats left dozens of similar seats, places where Trump had won far less than 8 points, effectively uncontested.
How Suozzi Won
The seat vacated by George Santos will be filled by Democrat Tom Suozzi, who last night defeated Republican Mazi Pilip.
Days before the election, polling from Siena College, the polling partner of the New York Times, showed Suozzi leading by 4 points despite the same voters favoring Trump over Biden by 5 points.
How to explain that 9 point swing?
The poll showed that 24% of Republicans and 57% of Independents agreed with the following statement: “Tom Suozzi is a moderate Democrat. He served on the Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress and previously as Nassau ́s County Executive. He ́s the type of common-sense representative we need.”
Suozzi ran to “win the middle” of the electorate, rejecting the false claim that candidates need to choose between pragmatism and energizing the base. The same poll showed Suozzi dominating his GOP opponent on core Democratic issues like abortion and democracy AND winning over these swing voters.
How the Pro-Normal Party Beat Boebert
In 2022, everyone from the pundits to national party operatives assumed Lauren Boebert was unbeatable by a Democrat. Her seat was rated as “Safe Republican.”
But Adam Frisch ran the numbers and realized he only needed to flip roughly one out of every 20 Trump voters in the district to win the seat. After securing a narrow victory in the Democratic primary, he took his promise on the road, criss-crossing the district and reaching out to voters of all backgrounds and persuasions with a bipartisan promise to restore sanity and common-sense. In Frisch’s own words:
“I drove 24,000 miles around Western and Southern Colorado with my son recruiting people to what my mom calls the ‘pro-normal party.’”
Not only did Frisch meet CO-03 voters where they were physically, but he met them where they stood ideologically. His campaign centered around building a “tri-partisan coalition” of Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans. His website described him as a “patriotic mainstream businessman” with “the experience to work with both parties” on kitchen table issues like inflation, jobs, and public safety and highlighted his endorsement by Boebert’s moderate Republican primary challenger, Don Coram.
He also touted a robustly-branded “Republicans for Frisch” operation and ran advertisements designed to appeal to conservative and middle-of-the-road voters.
The Path Forward to a Majority
Sometimes politics is simple: listen to voters.
Polling from Blueprint shows that nearly 7 in 10 voters voters prefer House Republicans pass the bipartisan border security deal rather than impeach Mayorkas. Voters want government that works, not a circus.
Last night reaffirmed swing voters are real: a district that voted Biden in 2020, then George Santos in 2022, then a Democrat in 2024 while also favoring Trump over Biden. And it reaffirmed practicing it the way that Blue Dog Adam Frisch and Problem Solver Tom Suozzi do has been proven to work.1
George Santos and Lauren Boebert show the scariest parts of American democracy. Their Democratic opponents showed why there is so much reason to be optimistic: the best way to defend democracy is to practice it.
Election analysts at Split-Ticket show a gain of 1 to 3 points for members of those pragmatic congressional caucuses