Tom Suozzi Ran On Border Enforcement. But That’s Only One Part Of The Story.

Much of the coverage of Democratic Rep.-elect a candidate in the race. And there are a number of prominent Muslims in Nassau County’s Republican government, including Chaudhry Akram, a top adviser to county Executive Bruce Blakeman. But Pilip lacked Suozzi’s level of grassroots support.

The Suozzi campaign’s Muslim outreach efforts also got a boost from the AAPI Victory Fund. The liberal Asian American super PAC mounted a low-cost, high-value campaign of advertising, direct mailers and robocalls targeted exclusively at South Asian and Arab American voters.

The group’s mailers in Hindi, Urdu, and Arabic tied Pilip to Santos and Trump. One particular item, written in English, Arabic and Urdu to target the district’s Arab American and Pakistani American communities, referenced Trump’s travel ban on majority-Muslim countries and threats of a Muslim registry, alongside Pilip’s words praising the former president. Another mailer, in the same three languages, quoted Pilip’s comments to an Israeli newspaper: “I know there will be a handful of Muslims who won’t like seeing [me] running for Congress, it will deter them.”

“With how extreme the Republicans are talking about the Middle East conflict, the Israel-Hamas conflict, doing negative [advertising] on Republican candidates works with Arab and Muslim voters,” said Trip Yang, the Democratic strategist who ran AAPI Victory Fund’s initiative in the special election. “You don’t necessarily need a Democrat calling for a cease-fire, but you do need to do negative on the Republican.”

At the same time, Suozzi’s refusal to countenance stricter conditions on U.S. aid to Israel, and his decision to visit the Jewish state during his campaign, kept him in the good graces of major pro-Israel groups, and likely limited the attrition of non-Orthodox Jews who had the option of voting for a Jewish candidate. Democratic Majority for Israel, a major pro-Israel super PAC that has defeated a number of left-wing Israel critics, spent a relatively modest sum boosting Suozzi in local Jewish community news outlets, and touted his victory as proof that “being pro-Israel is not only wise policy but also winning politics.”

When Nassau County Republican Party Chairman Joe Cairo picked Pilip, a Nassau County legislator who’d flipped a Democrat-held seat, as the GOP nominee for New York’s 3rd in mid-December, it seemed like a stroke of genius.

How would Democrats run against a Black Jewish woman ― Pilip is an Ethiopian-born Israeli immigrant ― much less one who promised to oppose a “national abortion ban”?

But after Pilip lost to Suozzi by 8 percentage points, far more than both public and internal polls had predicted, a Long Island Republican strategist now wonders whether Pilip was the “right fit for the district.”

The GOP strategist’s reservations are not exactly the same as those of Pilip’s moderate and liberal critics who fault her for failing to clarify the full spectrum of her views on abortion policy, gun control and immigration.

Instead, the strategist, who requested anonymity so as not to jeopardize professional relationships, argued that Pilip, a registered Democrat, failed to elicit enough turnout from the Republican base in strongholds like Massapequa, Farmingdale and Levittown. While Pilip took heat from Democrats for warming to Trump toward the end of the race, she initially refused to say whom she voted for in 2020, and ruled out supporting Trump if he were convicted of a crime (a stance she later reversed).

“Her position on President Trump probably hurt her,” the Nassau GOP strategist said.

Asked whether Pilip’s identity as a Black woman with a thick foreign accent hurt her ― particularly in contrast to an Italian American member of local political royalty ― the GOP strategist was diplomatic.

“I would say identity politics definitely played a role in the usually Republican parts of this district,” the strategist said.

Pilip’s quandary speaks to the challenges of getting support from a Republican base that is less flexible than its Democratic counterpart. Suozzi was comfortable distancing himself from Biden ― and Democrats still showed up to vote for him.

“I would like the president to do a better job regarding immigration,” Suozzi told CNN in a Feb. 4 segment.

And while Suozzi said in that interview that he approved of “a lot of things” Biden has done, he blanched when asked whether he would welcome Biden to campaign for him.

“I can pretty much guarantee that the president is not going to be coming here,” he said.