Dem
51
GOP
49
We haven't written too much about Rep. "George Santos" (R-NY) recently, despite his multiple Nobel Prize wins, his entrance into the Forbes 400 list, and his becoming the first living person to be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. It is our understanding that he has replaced St. Jude Thaddeus as the patron saint of hopeless cases and desperate situations.
We write about him now, however, as he had a pretty bad day yesterday. To start, given how vulnerable he is as an embarrassing sleazeball in a district that is D+2 and could well get bluer with gerrymandering, the sharks are circling. He has already drawn a staggering 21 primary opponents. That's nine Democrats, nine Republicans and three minor-party candidates. And the ninth of those nine Democrats, who announced yesterday, is a heavy-hitter. It's Tom Suozzi, who represented the district before vacating it to launch a quixotic run for governor. It's possible that he's damaged goods due to that run, but the voters of NY-03 liked him well enough before, and name recognition is pretty important in a nine-way primary. Assuming Suozzi and "Santos" advance, the former will surely knock off the latter. "Santos," for his part, had little to say about his newest would-be challenger.
Perhaps "Santos'" reticence was because he was in the middle of running the first sub-2-hour marathon, and wanted to conserve oxygen. Or it might be because, an hour or so after Suozzi declared, "Santos" was hit with a new indictment from the Department of Justice. The Representative already pleaded not guilty to 13 counts, but the new, superseding, indictment has 23 counts, including one count of conspiracy to commit fraud against the United States and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
In short, barring a near-miracle, "Santos" is cooked. Though maybe he can pray to himself for an intercession. Alternatively, maybe he and Donald Trump can play cards together in the hoosegow, and commiserate about how getting into politics was the worst decision they ever made. (Z)