House GOP’s majority shrinks as Democrats flip Santos’ New York seat

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed he intentionally mixed up the names of GOP rival Nikki Haley and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as he defended his verbal slip-up last month. 

Democrats have been seizing on Trump’s verbal slip-ups as Biden faces questions about his mental acuity. Trump made the same claim — that he was being intentional and “sarcastic” — when he previously confused former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden during a rally and said he was leading Obama in election polls.

Haley questioned Trump’s mental fitness after he confused her with Pelosi when talking about the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol at a rally in January. 

Newly elected US House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks after his election at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on October 25, 2023. 

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is overseeing one of the smallest House majorities in history – and Democrat Tom Suozzi’s win in a New York special election will shrink it further.

Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip in a race for the seat previously held by former GOP Rep. George Santos who was expelled from Congress last year.

When Suozzi is sworn in, Republicans will control 219 seats and Democrats will control 213. With a breakdown of 219 to 213, House Republicans will only be able to lose only two votes to pass legislation on party-line votes if all members are present and voting

After the swearing in, there will be three vacancies in the House. Former New York Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins resigned from Congress earlier this month, former Ohio GOP Rep. Bill Johnson resigned last month and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy resigned at the end of last year.

In addition to the tight margin, there is always the possibility that absences could further impact the vote math. The razor-thin majority presents an enormous challenge for the speaker, leaving Johnson with almost no room for error as he navigates demands from competing wings of his party.

Hardline conservatives have already shown they can hold major sway in the chamber with such a narrow majority – most notably when a group of hardliners moved to oust McCarthy from the speakership in a historic vote last year.

Read more about the House GOP’s shrinking majority.

In an aerial view, Texas National Guard soldiers load excess concertina wire onto a trailer at Shelby Park on January 26, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas.

The immigration and border crisis is quickly morphing into the dominant issue of American politics – and Democrats are pivoting faster than Republicans at the moment.

GOP lawmakers have long claimed immigration as their top issue, raising the alarm about the drastic rise of migrants and asylum-seekers at the southern border. Blaming President Joe Biden for the border crisis is the backbone of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

But after a defeat in a special election to fill a New York House seat, Republicans might be wondering if they are being outmaneuvered by Democrats who are adjusting to acknowledge the crisis and suddenly preaching bipartisanship.

A drastic, new migrant policy under consideration by the Biden administration will only heap pressure on Republicans to relent and seek middle ground with the White House even as they complain about Biden’s current policy.

Here’s what’s happened with immigration so far this week:

Read the full analysis on this week’s events.

House Republicans engaged in a tense round of finger-pointing Wednesday after their stinging loss to hold on to expelled Rep. George Santos’ seat that left them with a razor-thin majority and deeply divided over the way forward.

Several members blamed the push by a band of New York freshmen to expel Santos. Others said the constant GOP infighting had hurt them in the eyes of voters.

Some said that the GOP candidate, Mazi Pilip, should have embraced Trump. And many said that Republicans needed to improve their campaign mechanics — namely embracing early voting that Trump has denigrated.

Here’s what some GOP lawmakers told CNN this morning on Capitol Hill:

Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida said it was a “stupid” move to expel Santos before he was convicted of a crime, despite the serious allegations against him.

Several vulnerable freshman members from New York, who had pushed for Santos’ ouster defended their decision, arguing that it was Santos’ fault for lying in the first place.

Rep. Mike Lawler said he “didn’t shrink the Republican majority. George Santos shrunk it by his actions. He was unfit to serve in Congress.” Rep. Marc Molinaro said Santos was “a con man and a crook and shouldn’t have been a member of Congress.” Molinaro also noted that Congress had not addressed the border, which may have hurt them in the eyes of the voters.

The chair of the House Republican’s campaign arm, Rep. Richard Hudson, argued that they could have done a better job encouraging early voting in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, and said he would speak with former President Donald Trump about the issue. Trump has criticized early and mail-in voting in the past. Hudson added that the weather could have depressed Republican turnout.

Rep. Max Miller of Ohio argued that Pilip made a mistake by not cozying up to Trump during her campaign.

The top super PAC that works to elect House Democrats plans to spread nationwide the tactics it used in the recent special election in New York as the party looks to recapture the chamber’s majority in November.

This comes on the heels of Democrat Tom Suozzi’s comfortable victory Tuesday night in the special election to succeed disgraced former GOP Rep. George Santos in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

“We approached this not as a Biden plus 8 district but as a Zeldin plus 12 district because that’s what it was in 2022,” said C.J. Warnke, a spokesperson for House Majority PAC.

Joe Biden carried the seat under its current lines by 8 points in 2020. But district voters strongly backed losing 2022 GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, whose coattails helped Republicans flip several suburban seats around the New York City area.

Warnke said Suozzi’s strategy in the special election revolved around tackling immigration head-on rather than avoiding the topic as a Democratic weakness. House Majority PAC ran ads featuring positive messaging around Suozzi and his immigration record and used the failure of the bipartisan border deal to attack Republican nominee Mazi Pilip in the final days of the campaign.

Meanwhile, several New York Democrats from neighboring districts served as top surrogates to help connect with minority voters during the special election, Warnke said.

Rep. Grace Meng, whose Queens district includes a sizable Asian American population, helped combat disinformation targeting AAPI voters, who make up more than 20% of 3rd District voters, according to the US Census Bureau.

In one example, someone on WeChat, a popular Chinese social media platform, pretended to be Meng’s mother and endorsed Pilip, a false narrative that the congresswoman quickly sought to correct.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is surrounded by staff, journalists and security as he heads back to his office following a news conference on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

House Speaker Mike Johnson downplayed the GOP special election loss in New York Tuesday night, urging Republicans during a closed-door meeting Wednesday morning not to panic over the results, according to multiple members. 

Johnson argued that Democrats spent $15 million in order to beat the GOP’s low name candidate in a Joe Biden district by less than 8 points.

About the last night’s race: Democrat Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip in the special election to replace serial fabulist and expelled former GOP Rep. George Santos. The result will further narrow the GOP’s already thin House majority and hand President Joe Biden’s party a boost as the general election campaign comes into focus.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries talks to reporters during a news conference on February 7.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries congratulated Congressman-elect Tom Suozzi on his “decisive” victory against Republican Mazi Pilip, according to a statement Tuesday.

Jeffries said his fellow New York Democrat defeated the “much-hyped Nassau County Republican machine and its handpicked candidate” despite “extreme MAGA Republicans” spending millions on personal attacks against Suozzi.

Jeffries called Suozzi the “quintessential public servant” and welcomed his “vision of commonsense solutions.”

The Democratic leader celebrated Suozzi’s victory this morning on Capitol Hill and said his party can learn from the way he ran his campaign. He pushed back on the notion that his success was solely rooted in his name recognition in the district.

“Tom Suozzi ran a great campaign. Tom Suozzi talked about issues, fixing challenges, solving problems and there certainly are lessons to be learned in that regard from other candidates as we approach November,” he said.

Asked if other Democrats should distance themselves from President Joe Biden like Suozzi did, Jeffries pushed back: “I don’t think Tom Suozzi distanced himself from the president. I think Tom Suozzi ran a campaign that was focused on the issues that were important to the people in Nassau County and Queens.”

Suozzi delivers his victory speech during his election night party in Woodbury, New York, on February 13.

As Democrats celebrate and Republicans dust themselves off, here are some key takeaways:

Immigration is a big issue – but is it a game-changer? Mazi Pilip and her fellow Republicans hammered Democrat Tom Suozzi over the migrant crisis in New York City, claiming he caused it along with Biden – a line that ultimately didn’t quite wash with voters who have long recognized Suozzi as a moderate or centrist.

Suozzi and state Democratic leaders countered Pilip’s migrant message and it never felt like the issue, typically a winner for the GOP, put Suozzi on the backfoot.

Redemption for top New York Democrats: Suozzi’s win is a major coup for the New York Democratic Party and its leaders, who came under heavy criticism from within over its candidates’ underwhelming performances in the 2022 midterms.

Suozzi’s success also provides Biden and national Democrats with a narrative reshuffle – a bit of good news when concerns over the president’s paltry poll numbers and intensifying worries over his age have stoked anxieties about the likely coming rematch with former President Donald Trump. The district broke cleanly for Biden in 2020, but Democrats on Long Island had been losing there ever since – until Tuesday.

The weather mattered: Heavy snow in the tri-state area Tuesday made travel tricky. A good thing for Democrats who, unlike many Republicans in thrall to Trump, embrace the idea of early voting.

Democrats (still) have an Israel problem: Suozzi was interrupted by protesters accusing him of aiding and abetting a “genocide” by Israel in Gaza. The interruptions were as much a message to Democrats, especially Biden, as the once and now future congressman from a heavily Jewish district.

Don’t take away too much: Democrats would be wise to remember that Suozzi was a unique candidate with deep ties across Nassau County, where most of the voters reside. Pilip, on the other hand, was a relative unknown going into the race and a relative unknown coming out of it.

Republican’s razor-thin majority in the House just became even slimmer. CNN has projected that Democrat Tom Suozzi will win the special election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District. You can follow along live as the results continue to come in here.

Suozzi was battling Nassau County legislator Mazi Pilip, who was running as a Republican, to win former GOP Rep. George Santos’ seat. Santos was expelled from the House in December over several ethics violations. 

Here’s what we know about today’s special election:

Here’s a breakdown of the House:

CNN’s Eric Bradner and Gregory Krieg contributed reporting to this post.

Republicans believed that New York’s 3rd District was the perfect venue for them to test drive their immigration message. There is a migrant shelter on the edge of the district and there have been headlines, like one last week of migrants attacking NYPD.

Most voters brought up immigration as a key issue, but Democrat Tom Suozzi — like many vulnerable Democrats who are hoping to win in November — was able to flip the script on the issue. 

Suozzi showed up to his opponent Mazi Pilip’s press event where she railed on immigration, waited until she finished then held his own impromptu press event where he accused her of not solving the issue, just talking about it.

She argued the Senate compromise was inadequate. He argued it was the best option on the table. It’s a message Democrats in the House and in the Senate in states like Ohio and Montana could emulate on the campaign trail.