Mazi Pilip’s failure to capture former GOP Congressman George Santos New York’s Third District also spells the end of the Republican majority in the House. I’ll explain.
Last week, House Republicans were unable to impeach President Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas because their leadership had miscounted the votes. They thought they had a 215-214 majority, expecting three Republicans to vote with the Democrats. But Texas Democrat Al Green took an Uber from the hospital where he had just undergone surgery, to Capitol Hill to cast his vote. That’s how tight things are in the House.
On Tuesday, House majority leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), came back from a month of blood cancer treatment and gave the GOP a tight 214-213 victory.
Secretary Mayorkas has not committed crimes and misdemeanors warrantying an impeachment. He was impeached, and the Senate will probably reject the impeachment papers, as a warning to the President to do something about his immigration policy. But that’s not the main issue. The main issue is that the GOP was just clipped one vote and the Dems gained one vote in last night’s special election, and that’s a bad thing for us, pro-Israel American Jews, where the Democratic minority is edging out the Republican’s itsy-bitsy majority.
And there was this note:
Republican Mazi Pilip, a registered Democrat and anti-Trump, lost the New York 3 special election. This is as House Dems are looking for 7 House Republicans to sign a discharge petition to pass the Ukraine bill. Never Trumpers are a disaster for America.
pic.twitter.com/SAilcZE6Vp— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) February 14, 2024
In the middle of Long Island, where Republicans have dominated major elections over the past three years, Tom Suozzi was able to win easily on Tuesday. Mazi Pilip lost by 46.1% to 53.9%. Let’s pray this landslide loss is not the shape of things to come, with the presidential elections only nine months away.
Tuesday’s vote flipped one of the five House seats crucial for the Democrats to regain the majority in November, and as such it injected a much-needed dose of optimism into the party. Tom Suozzi’s campaign provided a blueprint for Democrats nationwide who are competing in purple states. The strategy is to challenge Republicans on their traditional issues––crime, taxes, and immigration, but also attack the two main weak points for Republicans – abortion and Trump.
Mazi Pilip conceded to Suozzi minutes after the Associated Press projected him as the winner. “We are fighters,” she told her supporters at her campaign headquarters. “Yes, we lost, but it doesn’t mean we’re going to end here. I did call my opponent. I did congratulate him.”
She added, “You are hard workers who love this country. So, let’s keep it up and we’re going to continue to fight because we are not going to give up. We’re going to bring commonsense government, I promise you.”
Here’s what we could have had:
Mazi Melesa Pilip, 45, was born in a small village in Ethiopia and made Aliyah with her family in 1991 when she was 12 years old, as part of Operation Solomon. She has three sisters who live in Israel. At age 18 she served in the IDF’s Paratroopers Brigade. After her service, Pilip studied at the University of Haifa, where she was Chairwoman of the Ethiopian Student Union, and earned a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy. In Haifa, she met her husband, Adalbert Pilip, an American-Ukrainian-Jewish medical student who was studying medicine at the Technion. She later earned a Master’s degree in diplomacy and security from Tel Aviv University.
After Mazi Pilip and her husband married they moved to the US and eventually settled in Great Neck, NY, where Adalbert works as a cardiologist. The couple has seven children.
The Pilips are Orthodox, and Mazi is vice president of her synagogue, Kol Yisrael Achim, on Middle Neck Rd in Great Neck, where we expect they’ll be doing a special kiddush tomorrow. Pilip is active in efforts to revitalize Great Neck and in speaking appearances about Israel before Jewish groups.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) who became famous for exposing the moral decrepitude of the presidents of three Ivy League universities, tweeted during the campaign: “Mazi Melesa Pilip stands out as a truly exceptional candidate and will make the hardworking families of New York’s 3rd district proud. Mazi is a shining example of the American Dream, and her extraordinary story reflects just that. As a paratrooper, mom, and local elected official, Mazi knows how to lead. I am proud to endorse her and Team Elise is all in to help her win.”
But, as the wisest of men put it (Proverbs 21:1), “Like channeled water is the mind of the king in God’s hand; He directs it wherever He wishes.”
On the other hand, could it be just the candidate’s heavy Israeli accent?
