Israel and Ukraine Aid Divisive in District; 83% of Voters Find Santos Unfavorable

A new Emerson College Polling/PIX11 survey of New York voters in the Third Congressional District finds that 45% of voters support Democrat Tom Suozzi, 42% support Republican Mazi Pilip, and 5% plan to vote for someone else. Nine percent are undecided ahead of the February special election to replace George Santos, who was expelled from Congress in December. 

Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said: “Suozzi voters currently express heightened enthusiasm, with a majority of those ‘very likely’ to vote on February 13 favoring Suozzi at 51% to 37%. It’s noteworthy that the ‘very likely’ voter segment constitutes 84% of the sample.”

  • Suozzi leads Pilip among voters whose highest degree of education is a college degree, 48% to 44%, and postgraduate degree, 53% to 33%. Pilip leads among voters whose highest degree is high school or less, 53% to 30%. 
  • While younger voters (ages 18 to 39) disapprove of the job Joe Biden is doing as President, 50% to 40%, the same demographic is breaking for Suozzi 53% to 34%.
  • Pilip leads among the Third District’s white voters, 49% to 40%, and 44% to 33% among Hispanics, while Suozzi leads among the district’s large population of Asian voters, 60% to 25%. 
  • Souzzi leads Pilip among males 45% to 43% and among females 45% to 41%.

Half (50%) of voters hold a favorable view of Tom Suozzi, while 43% have an unfavorable view of him. Seven percent are not familiar with Suozzi. Forty-four percent of voters have a favorable view of Mazi Pilip, while 36% have an unfavorable view of Pilip. Twenty-one percent are unfamiliar with Pilip. This compares to 16% who are favorable of George Santos, while 83% of his former constituents have an unfavorable view of him.

A third of voters (33%) approve of Biden in the Third District, 59% disapprove of the job he is doing as president, 8% are neutral. A quarter of voters (25%) approve of the job Kathy Hochul is doing as Governor of New York, 66% disapprove, and 10% are neutral. 

Sixty percent of voters support the United States giving aid to Israel, while 24% oppose the U.S. giving aid, and 17% are neutral. This compares to 51% of voters who support the U.S. giving aid to Ukraine, while 30% oppose U.S. aid, and 20% are neutral. 

  • Souzzi voters support aid to Israel 42% to 37%, while Pilip voters support aid to Israel 81% to 8%.  
  • For Ukraine aid, Suozzi voters support 73% to 15%, while Pilip voters oppose 45% to 27%.

Immigration is the most important issue to 26% of voters in the district, followed by the economy (22%), crime (15%), housing affordability (12%), “threats to democracy” (9%), education (5%), healthcare (4%), and abortion access (4%).  Voters who find immigration to be their top issue break for Pilip 68% to 17% while voters who say the economy break for Suozzi 50% to 42%.

A plurality of voters (45%) think the federal government should fund most of the housing of migrants that were bused from Texas to New York, while 18% think it should be from a mix of New York City, Texas, and the federal government, 14% think New York City only, 11% Texas only, and 9% think funding should come from someone else. 

Methodology

The Emerson College Polling/Pix11 New York Third District poll was conducted January 13-15, 2024. The sample consisted of 975 registered voters, with a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error, of +/- 3.1 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, party, race, and education based on US Census parameters, and New York voter registration and voter turnout data by regions (NY SOS). Data was collected by contacting a list of cellphones via MMS-to-web, landlines via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and emails provided by Aristotle, along with an online panel of voters provided by Alchemer. 

It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and know that with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.

This survey was conducted by Emerson College Polling and sponsored by Nexstar Media. All questions asked in this survey with exact wording, full results and cross tabulations can be found under “Full Results.”