Voters in New York’s Third Congressional district head to the polls next week to fill the seat of the disgraced former Rep. George Santos. Democrat Tom Suozzi has more than tripled his opponent Mazi Pilip’s fundraising totals, and Democrats seem hopeful about their chances to flip the seat back in their favor, further cutting into Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor thin majority. The race is sure to offer some level of insight into Democrats’ chances, both in New York and across the country, of winning back the house in 2024. What’s more, this special election could provide an interesting test of how the GOP’s failure this week on immigration reform will impact swing districts.

So, what is the data telling us so far? Let’s take a look. Note that we are relying solely on County Boards of Elections for these figures and these are likely about 95% of the actual votes cast thus far.

Mail Vote Numbers Dominated By Women, Democrats 

• So far, there have been just over 10,000 mail votes cast.
• Among mail voters, registered Democrats are +29 points, which is a 3 point increase over the mail vote numbers in the 2022 election.
• Similarly, of those 10,000 votes cast to date, 60% of them are female voters, which is a 3% increase over 2022 numbers. Additionally, among women mail voters, Democrats have a commanding 2 to 1 lead, an improvement over the 1.7 to 1 lead Democrats had in all of the early votes in 2022.

Trends Continue After First Weekend of Early In-Person Voting

• After the first weekend of early in person voting, just days away from the election, we currently have nearly 27,000 total early votes reported. 
• The early in-person votes are +13.7 points Democratic, a nearly 6 point increase over numbers observed in 2022. 

The early signs are certainly positive for the Suozzi campaign. With that said, he’ll need to continue to drive up the margins in this early vote period over ‘22 numbers to secure a victory. There is plenty of voting still to be done in the district and Democrats can’t get too comfortable. We’ve seen that high Democratic turnout leads to good things, so get out and vote! As the data continues to roll in, we’ll be sure to keep you updated – follow along @tbonier and @TargetSmart for all the latest.