That’s left some progressives worried about pivoting too far to the center.

“We need to be very careful,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “You’re never going to out-Republican a Republican.”

Suozzi’s strategy, though, is already rippling through Democratic circles. Even some of the most optimistic Democrats were shocked by the scope of his victory, which brought them even closer to the House majority. His win in an election dominated by a surging migrant crisis gave them what they see as a clear lesson: Address immigration head-on and, if needed, in tough terms.

Republicans have spent years battering Democrats on immigration and they are already plotting to elevate it to the center of the 2024 campaigns across the country. But Democrats have been salivating at the prospect of using the collapse of a bipartisan deal to go on the attack. In the wake of Suozzi’s win, the idea of winning on border security has never seemed so real.

Democrats in Congress immediately began discussing Suozzi’s win as a playbook for dismantling Republicans’ immigration attacks.

“Democrats should learn a lesson from NY-03,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in a memo Wednesday to fellow Democrats. “Quite simply, we risk losing the 2024 election if we do not seize this opportunity to go on offense on the issue of the border and turn the tables on Republicans.”

The embrace of a more conservative border security position is triggering alarm with progressives who — still seething about Democrats’ embrace of enforcement-focused border legislation — see some risk in meeting Republican attacks head-on. Their colleagues, they said, may be taking away the wrong things from Suozzi’s win.

“I actually don’t think that it’s necessarily the playbook that would apply to the rest of the country,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“His position is not necessarily the mandate for the future,” said Rep. Raúl Grijlava (D-Ariz.). “Those of us that live, work and represent the border need to be heard as much as the congressman from New York.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Progressive Caucus, said Suozzi’s core message had been “very inclusive,” though “the rhetoric got a little more extreme” toward the end of the race. The real lesson, she said, was that Democrats can address immigration attacks instead of shying away from the issue.

“And you don’t need to lean in with rhetoric that is xenophobic and Trumpian. You can actually lean in with a message that is broad and inclusive,” she said.

Suozzi’s victory marked a much-needed reset for Democrats, who have seen Republicans make huge gains on Long Island in recent years, both at the local and federal levels — including battleground House seats in 2022. Democrats this year are looking to reclaim those, as well as a handful of districts further upstate, where many of the same themes are certain to play out.

Democrats concede that Suozzi was only trying to address the issues that mattered most to his voters in his quest to flip the seat.

“We may have slight differences in our prescription for it, but the core of it is recognizing this is a real fear and concern,” said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.).

Republicans have weaponized immigration against Democrats cycle after cycle, from the caravans in 2018 to the GOP governors who flew and bused migrants to blue states in 2022. An influx of those migrants brought the issue to the forefront of this special election in this district.

The GOP ran ads attacking Suozzi that almost exclusively messaged on immigration, relying heavily on footage of him bragging that he kicked ICE out of Nassau County.

Suozzi didn’t flinch. His ads promised to secure the border and praised ICE as a vital agency. A former member of the Problem Solvers Caucus during his previous term in Congress, he was never a dyed-in-the-wool progressive.

Suozzi paired some strong language about the border with calls for a path to citizenship “for those who follow the rules.” But his condoning of the GOP’s use of the word “invasion” earned some rebuke from colleagues.

“I don’t take issue with the language or the description. It’s a very serious problem of people crossing our border in a very unvetted, chaotic fashion,”
Suozzi said in a February news conference when asked about the GOP’s use of the word.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) said it was the exact language used by a white supremacist who slaughtered 23 people in her community of El Paso in 2019.

“I’ve never heard another Democrat use that term,” she said. She called Suozzi a “good guy” and said she didn’t doubt his values but that she plans to speak to him: “I’m eager to have a conversation with him about the implications of it.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a leading progressive, welcomed Suozzi back into the House. Though he disagreed with some of Suozzi’s language on immigration, he added: “Every district is different. And we all have to communicate with our constituents in a way that we think is best to get their support.”

Similarly, Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said candidates in purple districts would have constituents with “conflicting points of view,” so Democrats would have to “be working through those with their communities.”

One clear takeaway: Democrats can’t just ignore immigration attacks.

Hispanic Caucus member Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) hailed it as “a sign that the best defense is a strong offense.”

The special election also played out against the backdrop of high-stakes negotiations in Congress over the fate of a border security and national security legislative package. Senate negotiators’ attempts to shepherd a compromise package through Congress fell apart after Speaker Mike Johnson declared it dead on arrival.

But the collapse of that deal — driven in part by former President Donald Trump’s opposition — gave ammunition to Democrats, who hope to use it to brand Republicans as hypocrites for playing politics and refusing to take action on the border.

Suozzi’s win can’t fully be explained by his messaging on immigration — he also benefited from a high name ID and a hefty cash advantage. But his success demonstrates that Democrats can “pick a fight” on immigration, rather than allowing Republicans to set the narrative as they have for years, said Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Julián Castro.

He said that Suozzi’s victory, in part, came from pointing out “the hypocrisy of a party trying to claim an emergency and not willing to do anything about it.”

But progressives had already
felt alienated by the border talks, which they saw as crafting restrictive new border regulations without a comprehensive immigration overhaul.

“I don’t think we will ever win long term by being Republican lite on immigration,” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), speaking generally about the issue.