GOP turnout, Zeldin coattails spurred Santos' congressional win

While George Santos flew under the public radar as a largely unknown candidate in the 2022 elections, the reasons for his victory in New York’s 3rd Congressional District in November are simple and clear.

He benefited from a much-better-than-usual Republican turnout generated by GOP county committees and he rode the coattails of GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, who cleaned up in the district.

The fact that the 3rd District lines had been redrawn, per the once-a-decade redistricting process, appears not to have been a factor.

Santos (R-Nassau/Queens) was part of a Republican wave on Long Island last fall that saw the party pick up seats not only in Congress, but also in the State Senate and Assembly.

“This was not about George Santos,” said Joe Cairo, the Nassau County Republican chairman, of the 3rd District outcome. “This was a Republican year. Any Republican would have won that district.”

Cairo’s counterpart agreed.

At most, redistricting may have cost Democrats a “maybe couple of thousands votes” in a race in which Santos beat Democrat Robert Zimmerman by 20,000, said Jay Jacobs, the state and Nassau County chairman. The newly redrawn district had eliminated Huntington and added parts of Massapequa, a Republican stronghold, among other changes.

“It wasn’t redistricting,” Jacobs said. “What did this was the overriding message problem we had on crime and bail reform, the fever pitch those were at in the New York suburbs. … And the amount of money" Zeldin and GOP campaign committees put into the election.

Santos has since been exposed for fabricating details about many aspects of his biography, including attending college at all, working for big-name Wall Street companies, being a volleyball star, being Jewish, having grandparents who escaped the Holocaust and losing his mother to the 9/11 attacks.

He’s under scrutiny for statements he had to file during the campaign, attesting that his income leapt from $55,000 to $750,000 in one year and claiming, initially, that he personally lent his campaign $705,000. It’s sparked accusations that Santos may have illegally funneled money to his campaign.

The U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Election Commission, the U.S. House Ethics Committee, the state attorney general and Nassau County district attorney are actively reviewing the issue or have been asked to review. Further, Santos possibly is facing revived charges in Brazil, where he once lived, over the use of a stolen checkbook to purchase goods.

A look inside the election numbers helps spell out the result:

The coattail effect

“Coattails” — how much the top of a party ticket helps those below — show Santos ran about 2 percentage points below the top Republican candidate in 2020 and 2022.

In 2020, Santos scored about 43% of the vote in the district while losing to then-Rep. Tom Suozzi, according to the state Board of Elections. Donald Trump, the GOP presidential candidate, won about 45% of the vote in the district, according to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, which analyzes redistricting data.

In 2022, Santos won nearly 54% of the vote in defeating Zimmerman in the district, which now includes parts of Queens. In Nassau alone — which accounted for more than 80% of the turnout — Santos won about 55%, according to the county Democratic Party.

In the same area, Zeldin won 57%.

A detailed breakdown of some 78 Nassau communities in the district shows Santos scored 1-3 percentage points below Zeldin in almost all of them, matching Zeldin in a few.

As Jacobs noted, Zeldin campaigned heavily on crime and bail laws. He also raised and spent more campaign money than previous GOP candidates. He failed to oust Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, but, with 47% of the vote, made the best Republican showing in a governor’s race since George Pataki in 2002 and likely helped Republicans win some local contests.

Redistricting

Though the 3rd District changed, it still favored Democrats on paper and helped Republicans a small bit.

In 2020, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the district by about 55,000. After redistricting in 2022, they had a 61,000-voter advantage.

If viewed through the lens of Trump vs. President Joe Biden, the district got slightly more Republican, changing from a 55% Biden district in 2020 to 54% in 2022.

The district could have been different if a redistricting map approved by the State Legislature in early 2022 hadn’t been thrown out by the courts as an illegal gerrymander. But not all that much.

Those proposed boundaries would have made the 3rd District stretch across the northern top of Queens, parts of the Bronx and into the Long Island Sound communities of Westchester County. That would have been a 57% Biden district, according to CUNY.

Turnout

Republican turnout in the district skyrocketed.

GOP turnout was about 64% — roughly 12 points higher than in a typical gubernatorial election year, Jacobs said. Democratic turnout was about 51%, which was a little below average.

“That really tells the story,” Jacobs said.

He added: “Santos didn’t get elected based on his outstanding resume and he didn’t get elected because of redistricting. He got elected because the political environment in New York State favored the Republican messaging.”

Cairo concurred that GOP turnout was in the mid-60s.

“It was higher than usual,” Cairo said. “Zeldin helped. The issues were with us. And we had a strong turnout … and I like to credit that to the Nassau Republican committee and the volunteers.”

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy