A special election day snowstorm kept voters away from the polls early Tuesday as Republican Mazi Pilip and Democrat Tom Suozzi scrambled for last minute support in the nail-bitingly tight House race to replace ousted Long Island Rep. George Santos.
GOP and Democratic strategists both agreed the storm, which dumped about three inches of snow on New York City and up to eight inches on Nassau County had dampened turnout across the hotly contested Third Congressional District throughout the morning.
“The storm depressed the early voting today. No doubt about it,” former Republican US Sen. Al D’Amato, said.
Turnout was particularly dreadful in the Queens portion of the district where, as of noon, just 11,948 early or in-person votes had been cast out of the more than 100,000 registered voters in the area, according to the NYC Board of Elections.
That figure doesn’t account for the absentee ballots already mailed in.
Over in Nassau County, 16,093 out of 421,554 registered voters had cast their ballots as of 12.25 p.m., with that total going up to 33,057 by early afternoon, according to its Board of Elections. In Nassau, nearly 70,000 people voted during the nine days of early voting or mailed in absentee ballots, officials said.
Officials were confident that the numbers would ramp up for both Pilip and Suozzi as the snowfall eased long before polls closed at 9 p.m.
Nassau Board of Elections Democratic County Election Commissioner Jim Scheuerman described the afternoon turnout as “steady” — and “increasing as the snow has passed us by.”
Fears that Mother Nature could impact voting turnout even prompted Pilip’s campaign to offer up free rides to polling booths.
“There is too much at stake in this election to stay home and not vote today,” she said in a statement. “As such, my campaign is offering rides to the polls, free of charge.”
Meanwhile, Pilip and her Democratic rival spent Election Day crisscrossing across the district as they hunted for last minute votes.
“This is the day we are going to vote to secure the borders, to support law enforcement, to improve our economy. You know it and I know it, there is one option. This is Mazi,” Pilip told voters at the McKenna Elementary School polling booth in Massapequa.
“Tom Suozzi created this mess. We cannot afford sending him to DC. You are going to send the little girl from Ethiopia, from the village in Ethiopia to the United States Congress.”
Suozzi addressed the snow’s impact on turnout during a 3:30 p.m. press conference at Robert Finley Middle School in Glen Cove, predicting it was a good sign for his camp because, “Republicans often vote in the morning and the Democrats vote in the afternoon.”
“The weather is fine, the roads are clear, there’s blacktop everywhere,” he added. “People as their civic duty need to get out and vote in this very important election and make sure that they cast their vote. I’m hoping that they vote for Tom Suozzi.”
He also again ripped his opponent as being “Santos 2.0,” hitting Pilip on issues such as guns and the migrant crisis.
“She has no plan, she has no specifics. People know me. I’ve been around. I’ve given specific details,” he said, calling Pilip’s accusation that his policies helped create the crisis “absurd” and “absolutely laughable.”
It comes after a new poll put out on the eve of the election showed Suozzi, a former three-term congressman, leading Pilip by a razor-thin margin of just 1 percentage point.
Suozzi had 46% support compared to Pilip’s 45% backing, the survey of 500 likely voters — conducted by polling firm J.L. Partners, showed.