Dem group spending $5.2M to try to flip Santos’s seat in special election

The main super PAC aligned with House Democrats will spend $5.2 million in initial television and digital advertisements to flip former Rep. George Santos’s (R-N.Y.) seat back to the Democrats in the upcoming special election, the super PAC announced Wednesday.

House Majority PAC said it will shell out $5.2 million in initial television and digital reservations to run in the weeks ahead of the Feb. 13 special election to fill Santos’s seat.

“With these initial television and digital reservations and mail program, House Majority PAC is making it clear that we will do whatever it takes to take back the House in 2024 – and NY-03 represents the opportunity to make that happen,” House Majority PAC President Mike Smith said in a Wednesday statement.

Former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi (N.Y.) will face off against Republican nominee Mazi Melesa Pilip, a Nassau County, N.Y., lawmaker and former Israel paratrooper, in the upcoming special election. Suozzi already planned to run for his old seat in New York’s 3rd Congressional District before Santos’s expulsion from Congress earlier this month. He held the seat before Santos’s election in 2022, but he left Congress to mount an unsuccessful New York gubernatorial bid last year.

“Tom Suozzi is a fighter who has a proven record of lowering costs, strengthening police, and working across the aisle to get things done. House Majority PAC looks forward to flipping NY-03 blue,” Smith said.

The special election for Santos’s seat will be held Feb. 13, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced earlier this month.

Santos was ousted from Congress on Dec. 1 in a 311-114-2 vote, weeks after the House Ethics Committee released a damning report including “substantial evidence” showing the New York Republican committed serious federal crimes.

The vote marked the third attempt this year to expel the embattled lawmaker from the House after he was criminally charged in the spring for allegedly misleading donors and misrepresenting his finances to the public and government agencies.

In a superseding indictment filed in October, prosecutors piled on additional charges over allegations Santos inflated campaign finance reports and charged donors’ credit cards without authorization.

Santos’s expulsion made him the sixth lawmaker to ever be ousted from the lower chamber. He served just 11 months in office.

Santos remained defiant throughout months of criticism and controversy, reiterating his innocence and right to due process. His criminal trial is slated to begin next September.