Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s campaign called former President Trump a “huge weight” on GOP candidates after Democrats won a special election for the New York House seat previously held by ex-Rep. George Santos (R).
“Let’s just say the quiet part out loud. Donald Trump continues to be a huge weight against Republican candidates,” Haley national spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement following the results. “Despite the enormous and obvious failings of Joe Biden, we just lost another winnable Republican House seat because voters overwhelmingly reject Donald Trump.”
“Until Republicans wake up, we will continue to lose,” she added. “Time for a new generation of conservative leadership that doesn’t turn off the American people.”
Former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D) won back his old seat in the House, flipping Santos’s seat back into Democrats’ hands. The seat was up during a special election after the embattled former lawmaker was ousted from the House after much controversy — and the Democratic win erodes the GOP’s majority in the lower chamber.
Suozzi defeated Republican Nassau County legislator Mazi Pilip, who also previously served in the Israeli military, in New York’s 3rd Congressional District, which President Biden won in 2020 by 8 points.
Trump called Pilip a “very foolish woman” after results rolled in Tuesday night, criticizing her for keeping her distance from him.
“I have an almost 99% Endorsement Success Rate in Primaries, and a very good number in the General Elections, as well, but just watched this very foolish woman, Mazi Melesa Pilip, running in a race where she didn’t endorse me and tried to ‘straddle the fence,’ when she would have easily WON if she understood anything about MODERN DAY politics in America,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Pilip sought to tie Suozzi to Biden, but she kept Trump at an arm’s length during the race.