National GOP launches anti-Tom Suozzi ad blitz

The Island Now

Starting this week, 3rd Congressional District voters can expect to see commercials attacking Democrat Tom Suozzi among the deluge of political ads on their TVs.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is slated to start airing $1.19 million worth of ads Thursday on behalf of state Sen. Jack Martins, the GOP nominee to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Steve Israel in the North Shore district.

The ads, originally scheduled to start Tuesday and set to run through Election Day on Nov. 8, will continue the committee’s role as an attack dog in a race the GOP considers one of its best opportunities to capture a seat from Democrats in the Northeast, said Chris Pack, an NRCC spokesman.

“I think you’ll consistently see the NRCC remind Long Island voters that Tom Suozzi raised taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars while taking a taxpayer-funded pay raise of $65,000,” Pack said. “Voters aren’t going to like that.”

While the committee’s spending arm does not coordinate with Martins’ campaign, the anti-Suozzi ad will be juxtaposed with Martins’ two positive ads touting his tax-cutting record in Albany.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, meanwhile, has been more reserved. Suozzi’s campaign says it has not reserved any ads on his behalf, but the campaign has spent more than $300,000 on TV advertising so far.

The race in the district stretching from northeast Queens to northwest Suffolk County has been considered tight since Israel announced his retirement in January.

Analysts for Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia Center for Politics say the race favors Democrats, but about a quarter of active registered voters have no party affiliation.

Pack said Martins shows “bipartisan appeal,” proven by his three victories in the 7th State Senate District, another district with many unaffiliated voters where Democrats outnumber Republicans.

“In Washington there’s a fantastic opportunity to give Steve Israel a fantastic going-away present” by electing a Republican to his seat, said E. O’Brien Murray, Martins’ senior campaign strategist.

The Democratic committee says it has largely stayed out of the race so far because a poll it released in August showed Suozzi leading by 16 percentage points and Martins getting hurt by his tepid support for the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

The poll was conducted before Martins started running ads and received several labor endorsements, giving him “an opportunity … to close that margin swiftly and decisively and win in November,” Murray said.

But Long Islanders for Truth, a spending committee formed last month by Patrick Halpin, a former Suffolk County executive and Suozzi ally, is planning a “comprehensive ad buy starting soon and running through Election Day” as part of $1 million in spending against Martins, a spokesman said.

“Long Islanders for Truth was established to counter the out-of-state, special interest money that is flooding Long Island in support of the Jack Martins-Donald Trump radical agenda,” Halpin said in a statement. “The truth is the special interests supporting Jack Martins have their work cut out for them.”

A Suozzi strategist, Kim Devlin, called the Republican committee’s attacks on Suozzi “typical Washington petty politics.” She noted Martins raised taxes and his own salary as mayor of Mineola and said Suozzi wants to “give voters what they really want, which is to talk to them about the issues they care about.”

By Noah Manskar

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